My father blinked slowly once. Twice. He tilted his head at an angle, a terrible smile stretching his lips. I took a step back, then forced myself forward. “Come back to the farmhouse—”
Still grinning, he put a finger to his lips. The lantern light flashed off his teeth. His eyes were huge, unblinking. I held out a shaking hand. “Come with me. Please.”
Papa dropped into a silent crouch. Hunkered down, staring up at me, he looked like a wild animal.
With startling speed, he leapt to his feet. In one swift motion, he was up and running, sprinting away into the forest. I hiked my skirts in one hand and gave chase. Branches crackled like fire under my feet as I ran. He would not leave me again.
I ducked and wove through the underbrush. Limbs and briars snagged in my hair and tore at my clothes. I fell farther and farther behind. When Papa slipped out of sight, I kept going. And going.
Panting, I burst into a clearing and stumbled to a halt. The gray stone well waited before me.
I sat down among sodden leaves and doused my lantern light. It was already dark as night under the thick canopy. Perhaps if Papa thought I’d left, he’d give his position away. It was another sign of his disordered mind that he had ventured into the woods without a light of his own.
I shivered in the blackness, sudden goose bumps dotting my arms. Willing my breath to slow, I drew in the scent of earth and trees. A damp chill circled me. The fog had returned. I hugged my knees to my chest, listening hard.
A branch snapped. I tensed, rising slowly, preparing to make a grab for my father.
It was only when the dim light of a lantern shimmered into view that I realized it wasn’t Papa returning.
Hide. The voice of instinct was loud in my brain. I crept back from the well into the shadows, pressing my spine against a tree. A figure drew closer, and I recognized the silvery hair and slight build. I nearly laughed aloud. I’d been scared into hiding by Miss Maeve Donovan. But curiosity closed my lips before I could announce my presence. What was the schoolteacher doing in the woods?
She walked slowly, her head bent over a lantern. In its soft light, her cobweb-gray dress looked almost white as she stepped gracefully through the trees. The fog swirled and dove, rose and shifted. It seemed to move with her, as though it were a part of her somehow. The temperature continued to fall, until my lungs ached with each breath. Miss Maeve paced slowly toward the well, her expression unreadable.
She placed the lantern on the well’s edge, pressed both hands on the stones, and raised her face to the sky. When she exhaled, her breath hovered like a vapor. Then the tide of fog swelled, so thick it smothered the lantern light.
In that featureless gray, I felt completely alone. Abandoned, even. The expanse of empty woods at my back loomed over me until I could stand it no longer. I sprang up, gathering my unlit lantern. “Miss Maeve? It’s me, Verity.”
A sudden gust of wind, bone-breaking cold and sharp as a blade, swept by. I gasped at the wintry onslaught. The fog parted, and for one instant, the view ahead was unobscured.
Miss Maeve was nowhere to be seen.
Her lantern sat on the well’s edge, its light a sickly yellow. “Miss Maeve?” I fumbled for the matches in my pocket and relit my own light, trying to make out anything in the murky woods. My pulse thrummed in my ears as I shuffled forward. The well was within arm’s reach when my foot struck something at once solid and alarmingly soft. I looked down through the fog.
My scream tore through the clearing, echoing off the trees.
Miss Maeve lay on her back at my feet. Pale, unseeing eyes stared out from her white face. I dropped to the ground beside her, my lantern throwing slashes of light into the dark. “Miss Maeve! Can you hear me?”
Her hands were crossed at her waist, like those of a body laid out for viewing. I shook her shoulder, gently at first, then again with more force. A lock of platinum hair slid across her open eyes.
Reason shouted over my rising panic, reminding me to check for signs of life. I slid my fingers under her sleeve, pushing back the vine-and-hair bracelet I’d seen at Sunday dinner. No pulse. I placed my ear close to her lips, praying for the slightest stirring of breath, but found none.
I had to fetch help. I turned in a circle, gathering my bearings. When I’d stumbled upon the well for the first time coming from Wheeler, I’d emerged just beside a massive, smooth-trunked tree. I spied it and rushed away in what I hoped was the right direction.
Limbs and leaves whipped against my face as I ran. Every breath burst from my lips in a frosted cloud. An ache spread from my numbed toes, through my feet, into my legs. Was my father still in the woods, suffering in the creeping cold? I pressed my free hand against the lantern for warmth.
It was so hard to think. Where had I been going? I staggered to a stop, blinking heavy lids. When I opened my eyes, there she was.
The little girl stood at the edge of the lantern’s glow, the light hollowing dark circles under her eyes and shadowing her round cheeks. I fumbled with the lantern, trying to make it shine brighter. My fingers wouldn’t work, as though the commands from my brain weren’t getting through.
The child moved at a steady pace, weaving and ducking between trunks and vines. I staggered after her, wondering if I was dreaming, wondering what I’d been doing in the woods before she came along. Why was it terrifyingly cold?
A violent tremor shook my body. The lantern slid from my fingers, its globe shattering with a sound like sleigh bells. I stared at it for a long moment. When I dragged my gaze up again, the girl was gone.
I sank to my knees and slid beyond caring, to a place of blissful unconcern. Only sleep mattered now. I felt myself slump to the ground. My last thought was of how perfect the leafy earth felt pressed against my cheek as I watched the icy cloud of my breath drift away into the dark.