of Ebba—slept next to her. Hody would be entranced by the color.
Why was she thinking of him? Why was she calling him Hody like he was one of her brothers and not just a boy she’d known for a handful of days?
She answered her own question: Hod was alive and her brothers were dead. Hod still existed, and her family was gone.
She traced the rune on her hand with the tip of her finger, wondering if she should try to reach him. But she dared not leave her bed, and she did not want to make herself bleed. Her heart bled; that should be enough. It wasn’t enough, though, and she promised herself she would try in earnest soon.
Deep down, she was afraid it would not work, and Hod too would be gone forever. She could not bear that now. Not yet. So she held on to the hope of him and lay in the darkness, pulling the void into her chest and down into her belly until she felt nothing at all. Eventually, sleep followed.
7
BEAMS
The ghost woman Master Ivo had referred to at supper the first night arrived at the temple several days later covered in blood. Keeper Dagmar carried her up from the hillside, and she cowered against him, shielding her face with her hands as they entered the temple. Keeper Dagmar had looked almost as pale as the woman in his arms when he’d strode through the kitchen and into the apothecary.
“Do not be alarmed. She is fine. Just shaken. The blood is from one of the sheep, but she has a scratch on her arm. I’ll patch it up. Please stay seated,” he’d reassured them, leaving the daughters and the keepers with kitchen duties gaping. He’d shut the door firmly behind him, and when the girls saw the ghost woman again, the blood was gone but she was no less terrifying to behold.
She was young and unwrinkled, though her hair was white like that of an old woman. Her skin was equally pale, her eyes only a few shades darker; they reminded Ghisla of rain clouds. Ghisla was almost afraid to look at her, yet when she did, she struggled to look away. The woman was strange and . . . beautiful . . . the way Hod was beautiful. Master Ivo was fascinated by her too; the day she joined the keepers and the daughters for supper the first time, he’d drawn close to her and peered into her eyes like a thieving magpie. She’d met his gaze steadily, though her white hands twisted nervously in her robes.
“Your eyes are like glass,” he pronounced. “A man will look at you and see himself. His beauty—or lack thereof—will stare him in the face.”
Ghisla composed a tune in her head so she could show the ghost woman to Hod if she ever got the chance. The rune had already healed on her palm. The lines were fainter now, though they were also thicker and slightly raised. Each day she stored up images with corresponding melodies to sing to him . . . someday. If she ever dare try.
Ghost woman, white as snow, pale as ice from head to toe. From whence she comes I do not know, ghost woman, white as snow.
The ghost woman—Keeper Dagmar just called her Ghost—was perhaps a decade older than Ghisla, not old enough to be her mother, though that was the role she seemed expected to fill for all the girls. Dagmar said she was a shepherdess, and she’d come from the fields to help with the temple’s “new flock.”
The keepers emptied a room of relics and replaced the ancient artifacts with a row of beds. A small chest was set at the end of each bed, a place to store their possessions, though none of them had much. Ghisla had nothing but the rune on her hand and the green dress she’d worn the day she’d arrived. Though Ghost was not a child, they put her bed in the same room, at the end of the row, and provided her with an extra chest.
Then the keepers cut their hair. Every curl, every lock of red, gold, brown, and black was snipped away. The keeper in charge of the clipping took pity on them and, after consulting with the Highest Keeper, decided to leave them with close-cropped caps instead of stubble. Ghost submitted to the shearing alongside them, her heavy white hair covering the rest like a blanket of snow. Somehow, her