Autumn had toppled heavily over the land, the night nibbling in earlier each day, swallowing up more seconds of sunshine, and leaving Mistaken in a shroud of hazy twilight by mid-afternoon. Soon the sun wouldn’t even bother to rise, leaving them in the clutched fist of unending night, trapped inside the town’s Warding Stones, hunkered down against winter’s fury.
Greer didn’t mind the cold, didn’t mind the dark, but the weight of the cove’s limits pressed down in those long stationary months, flattening any potential joys or cheer. She could already feel the serpentine squeeze of claustrophobic dread tightening around her, as binding as shackles.
She rubbed her hands over her forearms with brisk efficiency, stirring her blood as she tried to think on better things. “Are you going to the barn warming tonight?”
Louise shrugged without commitment. She tied the hare to her rucksack, letting it join two others, already cleaned. The pelt went inside the bag, but as she reached for the organs, Greer stopped her.
“Wait. Aren’t you leaving those?”
Louise’s hazel eyes darted past the flags; her face was cloudy with hesitation. “I wasn’t planning on it.” Her voice was careful, the words delicately formed. “It’s not yet Reaping.”
It wasn’t, but lacy patterns of hoarfrost stretched fingers over the little pond behind the Mackenzies’ cabin, and Greer’s breath lingered in frosty puffs even throughout the afternoon’s warmth. Great flocks of black-and-white geese had long since flown for warmer climes, and golden stalks of wheat rustled and whispered against one another, nearly driving Greer mad with their secrets. The farmers’ silencing scythes couldn’t come soon enough. The Benevolence would soon descend from their colony high up in the Severing Mountains.
Some might already be here.
Greer reached out to stop Louise, her fingers covering the bloody bits.
“Just these, then. Please?”
Irritation flushed over Louise’s face, nearly drowning out her stain of freckles.
“Louise,” Greer persisted. She could feel the discontent building between them, like a wall grown taller with every stone her friend dropped in place.
Louise pressed her lips together, and Greer could tell she was struggling to hold back a mouthful of sharp words.
“You’re right, it’s not Reaping,” Greer tried again, gently, quick to avoid confrontation if she could. “But…we shouldn’t give only when it’s expected. All this”—she gestured to the trees, to the rabbit—“it’s a gift. Their gift to us. We should be grateful for it.”
Louise snorted. “You sound just like Martha.”
A blossom of pride swelled in Greer’s chest—she adored the older woman who’d lived with their family since she was a small babe—even as she realized Louise hadn’t meant it as a compliment. Still, she held her gaze with firm resolution, refusing to be the first to back down.
After their silence grew thorny, Louise turned, facing the forest beyond the flags, and offered out a deep and disingenuous curtsy. “Thank you for the rabbits I had to catch and kill and clean myself. It was very good of you to let me work so hard. I’m wildly grateful,” she called out, her voice mincing.
“Stop it!” Greer hissed, disappointed. “What if they hear you?”
Louise choked on laughter. “It’s only you and me. No Benevolence. No Bright-Eyeds. There are no people in this valley for miles all around us.”
“Maybe not here, right here,” Greer sputtered, swallowing back the urge to remind her that the Bright-Eyeds were not people at all. “But there”—her hand rose toward the Redcaps, toward the flags—“they’re out there. All of them,” she added.
“They’re not real!” Louise said, laying out each word with heavy care. “They’re nothing but stupid stories to scare children at bedtime.”
Greer glanced into the deeper forest, her eyes darting as she tried to catch a telltale glimpse of eye-shine, certain Louise had just brought perdition down upon them. “You don’t mean that.”
Louise was always poking at things she shouldn’t, eager to argue, quick to show that she wouldn’t fall into line just because the rules dictated she should. She loved saying startling things to see how peoplewould respond, only ever redacting them when given a sharp look from her older brother.
But Ellis Beaufort wasn’t with them now.
Louise licked her lips. “What if I do?”
“You’re just acting like…” Greer sighed, tossing the last of her words away, ready for the conversation to be over. For the first time in her life, she wished she could snap her fingers and instantly return to Mistaken. It was bound to be a miserable hike home with Louise in such a contrary and foul mood.
“What? What am I acting like?”
“A fool!” The words fell free before Greer could stop them. She reached out, intending to console her friend, hoping to smooth the abrasion over, but Louise looked anything but wounded.
She stared at Greer with a mix of disdain and pity and let out a bark of laughter. “That’s a fine accusation coming from a grown woman worrying about the monsters under her bed, leaving out trinkets and treasures, trying to buy approval. Do you ever stop to consider how foolishyouact?”
“The gratitudes aren’t foolish.”
