Elijah came as himself, not as Eden. I was in my garden, pinching back the leaves of a garlic plant about to go to seed. A shadow stretched over me. I squinted up into the noonday sun. We were all leaner, but he looked gaunt. “What do you want, Eli?”

If you didn’t have a history with him, you could mistake Elijah’s unlined face, his louche posture, and his boyish pout for youth. But he had turned fifty in the decade plus since that last terrible argument, and to me, it showed. He was ashy. Bags under his eyes. The veins on the back of his hands stood out. “I didn’t come to fight.”

I dug into the earth with a spade. The smell of damp soil soothed me. “I assume that Eden does all the fighting nowadays?”

Eli shuddered. “She goes by Grandmother now. It’s a sort of euphemism. Like how all the names for bear are really ‘brown one’ instead—”

“I know about bears.” He always liked a lecture. “What do you want, Eli?”

He bit his lip. “It’s just that there’s a cantrip should prevent anyone from saying that name.”

“Eden?” I said, then finding his surprise infuriating, “Eden!” I shouted. “Seems like your raggedy spells don’t work.”

“On you, Deshaun. My spells don’t work on you! It’s why I’ve come.”

I stood up. Planted my heels in the earth. “You’ve come all this way to use me as a magical guinea pig? Where’s your gown? Where’s your knock-off Jimmy Choos? Your costume jewelry? How you gonna hex me without your evil queen regalia, boo?”

He spread out his hands.“You got it all wrong. I can’t blame you for that.” He looked down at his feet. “I came without any of that, without armor, without charms, to ask you to help me. I take care of survivors now. Most of ‘em barely more than kids. Grandmother is Eden’s role. She—I—look after them. But it’s not safe here. You know that. I need to get them to the city.”

This was why he’d come. Another foolish grand adventure. “I’m not young. Leave me with my grief and my plants.”

He sneezed, the way he always did when he was about to cry. “I can’t protect them all. I need you.”

I looked up at him. Deflated. Needy. Found it hard to hold onto my anger. “What you need is some lotion for your ashy ass.”

And so it went.

Elijah had taken up residence in the ruin of a grand old mansion. Out front, a heroic fountain choked with duckweed and water hyacinth. Mardi Gras beads slung over the enormous chandelier in the foyer. Threadbare rugs on the terrazo. The grand staircase was lit by hundreds of candles, ranging in size from tealight to altar pillar, in all the colors of the rainbow. He descended from above, the flickering light playing against his cheekbones. He wore a silken turban and a Schiaparelli pink dressing gown, not quite Eden’s deadly glamour, but definitely not just Elijah.

I was sitting in a folding lawn chair. He reclined in a moth-eaten chaise longue. He picked up a wine glass from an old steamer trunk littered with them and held it to the light. It was none too clean, but he poured it full of red, and drained it in a single pull. He smiled. “The children have only ever seen me as Grandmother. And I think it’s important for their faith. But you knew me before.”

“We only lived together for six years,” I said.

“Six years of you critiquing my makeup and making sure I got enough sleep so no one would know I robbed your cradle.” He poured another measure of wine. “You did get my marrain’s gumbo recipe out of the bargain.”

“‘If the roux don’t look like Wesley Snipes, it ain’t ready.’ So, what does Grandmother wear? I assume it isn’t a housecoat and a showercap.”

Elijah stood. He placed his wine glass back on the steamer trunk and made a complicated gesture with his left hand. The dressing gown shimmered, the bodice constricted around his bosom, and sequins covered it decolletage to waist. The skirts bloomed out and sprouted marabou feathers along the hem. His turban grew feathers and beads. His voice became mocking and seductive. “These are the rags I wear around the house. But for our grand voyage? I have something truly spectacular.”

Eden extended a hand to me. She had an immaculate French manicure. “Come doll, time to meet the kids.”

Hand in hand we strolled out back into a courtyard with an empty pool lit by paper lanterns. About a dozen figures arrayed themselves around a bonfire burning in what was the pool’s deep-end. A young man clambered up the pool’s ladder. Early twenties. Thick, wavy black hair. He wore a rumpled gabardine pea coat. He was striking, and I felt awkward noticing it. Eden dropped my hand. “This is Juanjo, the oldest of my children. Sometimes the most responsible.”

Juanjo bowed deeply at the waist, then grabbed my hand and kissed my ring finger, as if he were greeting the pope. He caught my eye. “At 23, I’m not much of a child.”

Eden slapped him on the bottom. “The impertinence! You’ll be grown when Grandmother says you are.”

Next were two girls in their late teens. Sabrina, redbone, tall, gawky, and angular. Shirelle, dark, short, and plump. You wouldn’t mistake them for sisters, but they had that strange facial similarity long time lovers get; something in the way they held their mouths.

Then a tiny person dressed in purple with a scarf wound around their mouth. They introduced themselves as Clay.

Each was younger than the next until I got to a high yellow boy with a kinky mop of hair. He couldn’t have been older than thirteen. Eden poked him in the belly. He giggled.

“EJ here is twelve.” Eden said.

“Twelve-and-a-half!”

“Twelve-and-a-half. He’s too young to remember the Breaking.”

An unexpected surge of envy roiled in me.

Grandmother’s gown looked too heavy for any single person to wear, yet Eden promenaded in it, on better days she sashayed. It was covered in ornamentation. Mirror fragments on the bodice, hemmed in by pearls, sequins, tiny crystals. The skirt was oceanic, both in volume and and accoutrement; nets held together panniers encrusted with shells, coral, over aqua taffeta. The train extended five feet behind.

Picking our way east over roads with surfaces cracked and buckled from the encroaching woodlands meant that our procession was more funereal than stately. When the sun started to dip towards the horizon, we made camp. Everyone had a job. Clay, David and Lee pitched tents. Juanjo and Nacho cooked the vegetation I’d foraged through the day. Shirelle and Sabrina spun a web of protection above the camp. It was both a physical thing, spun out of gossamer threads Shirelle conjured, and a mystical barrier called into being by Sabrina’s song. Even EJ helped fetch water and kindling for the fires.

Once we made camp, I helped Grandmother undress, and like some fairy tale where some miraculous beast sheds its skin and becomes an ordinary man, watched her shrink into Elijah. None of the children, not even trusted Juanjo, were allowed into Grandmother’s tent. Elijah’s rationale was that seeing him as a middle-aged man instead of a beautiful titan would shake their faith when they need it most. He was drained and fragile at the end of the day, and being his confidant forced a sort of intimacy I was no longer used to. I brought him his food, fed him when he was too tired to lift spoon to mouth.

About five days into our trek, I brought Elijah some nettle soup and fried mushrooms. He sat with his back to me, and the criss-cross of scars across his ribs and spines looked like a tributary map. He received those marks during the time we weren’t speaking, and I didn’t have it in me to ask. “Brought your supper.”

His eyes were tired. “What I wouldn’t give for a two piece and a biscuit. No matter how greasy.”

“Today we have puffball mushrooms fried in expired cooking oil, if you’re looking for an unhealthy snack.”

Elijah sucked his teeth. “Speaking of snacks, I see my eldest has his eyes on you.”

“Juanjo?” I thought of how his hand lingered on mine when I showed him how to pull up hairy bittercress without bruising the leaves. “He’s been helping me forage. Good head for mycology. He found the giant puffballs, and warned off Clay from the Jack-o-Lanterns when they—”

“Those ain’t the kind of mushroom head he’s after, DeShaun.”

My mouth felt dry. “You nasty! He’s barely more than a child.”

“He’s a man. And it ain’t like there’s a surplus of fine ass in the world.”

My cheeks were hot. “Don’t want no more of this talk.”

Elijah leaned back into a pile of cushions. He closed his eyes. “Don’t say I never warned you.”

I tried to keep my distance from Juanjo after that conversation with Eli, but I only had the flimsiest of excuses. He did have a good head for mycology, and it was hard to forage on my own for enough food to feed the camp, particularly as we got further into the wilds and more of the flora was the twisted and useless sort made by the Breaking. We fell into a sort of companionable silence. I could feel his interest, and to be honest, I returned it, but we never let that thing get in the way of the work.

We had been lucky on our trek so far. We heard a pack of wolves in the hills, but they’d stayed away. We lost the better part of a day when Lee got sick after being stung by a Broken wasp. Uneventful, for the most part.

Juanjo and I were picking sloes and rowan berries at the edge of a meadow and keeping an eye on EJ while he gathered dried grass and twisted it into bundles. Juanjo was singing a song in Spanish about a botecito, and had just got to the part about ‘una isla dulce amor,’ when an unmistakable sound killed the song in his throat.

Broken crows aren’t black like their untransformed cousins, they’re a vibrant purple. Twice as big, they don’t caw. Instead, they have a horrible screech like a cross between an air raid siren and a wounded child. As silent in flight as owls, you don’t hear them unless they’ve found something to eat. They have a taste for meat. The sky turned purple as they flowed like smoke over the rowan trees and across the meadow.

“EJ!” Juanjo yelled. He ran towards the boy who dropped his bundle of grass and was standing stock still staring at the murder heading for him. Juanjo tackled the boy and covered his small body with his own as the first birds began to divebomb. I knew a song of the earth and started chanting as the swirling purple mass descended.

A shout pealed. Clay ran towards us, scarf unwound from their mouth. They breathed out a gout of flame that scattered the murder and sent the smell of singed feathers sharp in my nose. The birds wheeled on their aggressor just as Clay inhaled deeply for another blast.

But it wasn’t flames that came next. From behind Clay, a brilliant white light made mockery of the November noonday sun. I shielded my eyes, but even closed, I could make out the after-image of Eden’s form. Her cold light scattered the crows, who screamed up and away in panic.

When the light faded, I ran to Juanjo and EJ, both motionless on the ground. I placed a hand on each of them and felt. EJ had a concussion and would have some bruising, but would otherwise be alright. Juanjo was hurt badly. Bleeding from several places. A punctured lung. Broken bones. I could mend a broken bone with time and concentration, but this was beyond me.

I began to weep, but Eden’s mirrored bodice glowed. I felt warmth suffuse my limbs. Then power. Like being hit by a thunderbolt. The good green flowed from my fingertips, setting bones and knitting flesh together. There wouldn’t even be scars.

The power flowed out of me. Exhausted and sweat-covered, I collapsed next to Juanjo and EJ. I looked up at Eden. “How?”

“My Lord delivered Daniel in the den of lions. Are these any less His children?”

I wondered, before unconsciousness took me, when Elijah had got religion.

I woke in Eden’s tent. Juanjo and EJ to either side. Juanjo snored. Eden, still in her gown, sat on a brocade cushion at Juanjo’s feet. Her makeup was immaculate, but she looked old. I could hear raised voices outside of the tent. I struggled to my feet.

Eden said, “They’re hungry. They’re cold. They’re afraid. Be kind to them.”

I exited the tent.

Shirelle was spinning her web. She tied off a strand then turned to David, hands on her hips. “And all I’m saying is my girl ain’t stuck with the name her momma gave her, could have picked any name in the world and ended up Sabrina.”

Sabrina blushed. She covered her face with both hands. “I like my name. It makes me feel pretty.”

“Girl, you are pretty. My point here is that this nigga,” she pointed at David, “stupid.”

David scowled. “Nacho? Lee? Back me up. We forever carrying around that old bag’s heavy ass shit. She don’t lift a finger to make camp. She’s slow as fuck. Always walking like she in a parade or some shit. We woulda been made the city if we wasn’t waiting on her ass.”

Clay shook their head. “You weren’t there. I spat a fireball dead center into that mess of birds. Just pissed them off. Three or four of us would have been dead—”

“Shit. I’m supposed to be scared of some old crows?”

I stepped into the light from the fire. “Those old crows would have stripped the meat from your bones in minutes. Your gift of strength would do little to stop them.”

David jutted his chin at me. “What you know about what I can do?”

“I know that there are more terrible things out in the Shattered Places than Broken crows. I know Eden has survived most of them. I know that a fifteen-year-old, no matter how strong, is no match for them alone.”

He had the grace to look chastised.

Tempers were soothed the next day by a foraged bonanza of rose hips, pine nuts, and turnips. Going to bed with a full stomach seemed to put everyone at ease. The day after that, we saw a rusted sign that informed us the city was only five miles off. We could see its skyline peeking through the trees. Everyone cheered, even David.

We made camp that night on the outskirts of the city, full of hope. A place un-sundered by Breaking. Where we could be whole without the pull of the Shattered Places. Where gifts didn’t leave us weak and empty. Sabrina sang for us, her voice a rich, dark baritone. Juanjo pulled me into a dance, and I found myself laughing as the rest of the children whooped, and I pulled him closer to me than I might have otherwise dared.

The web had never been broken. Every night Sabrina and Shirelle put up the web, and every morning they took it down. Sleep came late for us all, but when it came, it came deep. I was confused when Sabrina’s scream split the night. Who would harm her? But it was the web. I could feel them around us, twice as many in number. A gout of flame pierced the darkness, as Clay unwound their scarf. But the intruders were not without gifts. Glass knives conjured from air whistled past me. They shattered against Lee’s invisible walls. Nacho’s rain of ice seemed useless against them, and they tore too quickly through Shirelle’s binding webs. The earth turned to mud at my call, but one of their own raised them a foot off the ground with a gesture. I wondered if there could be turns of surrender.

Then Eden came out of her tent. One moment, I saw Elijah, half-dressed, without makeup, trying to fasten the back of his gown. Then everything changed. I have been near the Shattered Places. The world there has been broken and wounded and everything seems less real. This was not like that. The world stretched and turned, but did not break. And everything after seemed realer. Eden’s skirts were the ocean, and they swept forward to snatch intruders in their cold waves. Clay was a dragon, their fire evaporating ice walls and incinerating those who cowered behind them. David was a giant, shrugging off conjured knives and tossing aside enemies into the darkness beyond. Shirelle was a spider, she grasped a man with dread pedipalps. Juanjo became a wood-sprite who commanded the very trees. The earth whispered to me that if I so wished it, it would swallow my attackers whole, never to be found again.

I wished it.

Then, as suddenly as it began, the world snapped back into place and all the glorious realness fled.

Eden knelt in the middle of the camp, her gown in rags, every single one of the mirrors on her bodice shattered. She crawled towards her tent, strewing broken beads like pearly seeds into the soil.

The next morning was slow going. Eden was weak, and Juanjo and I helped her walk. She insisted on wearing the tattered remains of the gown, though whatever power imbued it had fled.

After a time, we crested a hill. There in a valley below us, in a park overgrown in ivy, was the museum we planned to make our new home. “We’re here!” Someone shouted, and three or four of the children ran down the hill to get a closer look. David picked up Eden, and said he was going to carry her to the heights for the best view.

I leaned against a birch tree. I could feel nothing of the wrongness here. It was strange to feel peace after so long. Juanjo put his arms around my shoulder. He leaned in close. He smelled like juniper, sweat, and the good earth. He asked me, “May I?”

Without answering, I kissed him hard and deep. It was good, like the first sprout of Spring after a long Winter.

We were still embracing when David carried Eden back down the hill. Her eyes twinkled with mischief. “David, darling, get me a chair. Then get yourself scarce.” He ambled off.

“Juanjo, honey, could you get us old folk some chamomile tea? I feel the cold in my chest.”

Juanjo looked bashful. “Need to start a fire.”

“I’m sure Clay could help with that.”

Eden sat next to me on a folding chair, and the two of us looked down at our destination, still intact. A new home, in a place largely untouched by the Breaking. I pointed. “That museum has a collection of garments dating back five-hundred years. Just imagine the gowns you could make.”

Elijah, not Eden, smiled back at me. “Imagine.”

We sat in silence for a moment, then Elijah slumped in his seat and fell to the ground. I was on him in a heartbeat, feeling with the green for an injury. But he was gone. I have no power to revive the dead. Still, I willed health and healing in through his limbs before admitting its uselessness. His heart had stopped.

It was important to Elijah in life that the children see him as more than mere flesh. I couldn’t bring him back, but I had other powers. All life wants to return to the soil. I whispered my farewells and concentrated. That face with those cheekbones and those arch expressions grew slack and then crumpled in. Sinew, skin, and bone crumbled. Blood dried up and blew away. All that remained was dust and ashes. A single, shimmering sequin from Eden’s dress caught on the wind and flittered away. There was a dark patch beneath my feet. One day, flowers would grow there.

Juanjo returned a few minutes later with three steaming mugs of chamomile. He furrowed his brow.“Where’s Grandmother?”

I wiped away a tear. “Gone. Taken up in a chariot with wheels of fire.”