In which the medallions get even more confusing, Darius is kind of himself but a weird version, and Ren continues to be so responsible and maternal I want to punch her. 

And now, after two day's hard riding in pursuit, as they stood in someone's messy yard with the troll lying dead, the first conspicuous feature of the Low Country was the color brown. A brown horse with no markings chewed grass beneath a tree. A big, bushy, brown dog sat on the front step. After a quiet girl invited them in, they filed into a brown cabin and sat at a sturdy brown table while Edem explained the prophecy.

Wescott, overly suspicious of anyone new, closely monitored the faces around the table. And Gabriel stared right back. His skin was freckled and suntanned. His eyes were brown, but his hair was red, turned coppery by the sun. Elowyn had never seen anything close to red hair in her life. It was supposed to have died out hundreds of generations ago, with the Highlanders.

One of the little boys, Hollis, had not stopped talking. He stood over Edem's shoulder. "We've got two." In his fist he displayed two silver medallions. They hit the dented tabletop with a clunk. "One was given to my dad. The bones out of their graves shall rise. And the second one, the tune is heard on the distant hill, Ren's friend gave her that."

"Who gave you the first one?" Edem asked.

"A neighbor, kind of."

Edem pulled the pipe from his mouth. "Brim?"

Hollis lifted his face in surprise. He nodded. "You know Brim?"

"I know him well."

All this time, Elowyn was taking in every sight and sound. She was here in the Low Country, listening to people, sitting in their kitchen, which was clean and neat if not eccentrically decorated with wildlife. An even smaller boy sat in a chair, peeking cautiously but curiously at the visitors from time to time. And the girl they called Ren, who was oldest of all, stood by the stove. Her feet were bare and her pants were rolled up. Around her neck she wore bits of shell and bone on twine. Her hair was long and wild. She had a plain, weathered look and sharply turned her head whenever Elowyn's gaze wandered her way.

Edem, still talking to Hollis, fingered the medallions lying on the tabletop. "What's your name?"

"Hollis Draven."

He ducked his head at the other three Dravens. "And these are your brothers and sister?"

Hollis nodded. "And I have one more brother."

"Where is he?"

"Fishing."

"And your father?"

"Also fishing."

"And your mother?"

"Dead," said Gabriel.

"I killed her," said the littlest boy.

They all stared at the table, thinking different things.

"I do want to stop the Bellicans," said Gabriel quietly. "It's the only thing I care about."

"Could the prophecy bring our mom back?" asked Hollis.

"It could bring everyone back," said Elowyn.

"Do you need all the coins for it to work?" Ren asked, startling everyone in the room. "Because I think I could find more."

"It will happen, anyway. The medallions were just for safekeeping," Edem said.

Edem, Elowyn, and Wescott trailed off into thought. And Ren and Gabriel, at opposite ends of the kitchen, looked at Hollis and Patch listening quietly to the conversation, and at the three members of royalty who had arrived chasing a troll and now announced that the Dravens belonged to a prophecy involving walking dead and mind control and something called a tune, and realized they had no idea what to do next.

"It's just a coincidence," said Gabriel at last, shaking his red head. "Hollis dug one up stupidly. Our neighbor found the other. Go bother our neighbor."

"The medallions end up in exactly the right hands," said Edem.

"I would help you, but how can we?" Gabriel blurted out. "We don't even have weapons! We just have....sticks. All thanks to your glorious king."

Wescott rose quickly. "He's your king, too. And you're indebted to him. You took something from him."

"I've never robbed him in my life. I've never even seen his face."

"That troll lying in your yard is livestock of the king. You killed the king's livestock."

"If you want to know the truth, my brother killed it," said Gabriel, shoving Hollis forward.

"That troll was a guard of the castle."

"Stop it!" Elowyn said, standing up.

But Gabriel was on a roll. "Then let the king tax us for it. He'll tax us, anyway. Every breath of air we suck is taxed. Everything we look at is taxed. If I didn't—"

There was a thumping below the floorboards. Everyone turned to look. Ren was gone.

"What are you doing?" Gabriel called.

Ren's dark head came up from the cellar. "They've been riding for two days. They're starving."

The last slabs of salted pork, doused in salt and pepper, sizzled and popped in a pan right alongside mushrooms. As soon as the aroma reached Sable's nose, she paced back and forth, licking her lips. "Can we have eggs?" Patch asked.

"We couldn't get any," said Ren, blocking him from the hot grease.

"Sometimes we have goose eggs," Hollis said to the visitors. "They have their nests by the river. And you have to steal it out from under them and—"

With a force that nearly took it down, the door was opened. Every head snapped up. Sable barked and then wagged her tail. The largest man Elowyn and Wescott had ever seen blocked all moonlight from entering the doorway, his enormous shoulders touching either side. It was the Dravens' father, back from a month on a fishing boat.

Darius Draven was famous for his size. The muscles on his bare arms were as big around as his head. His long, wavy hair and beard were black as night and his beard was plaited in small braids tied with fishing line. Around his neck he wore a massive wooden pendent. He had not built his own ceilings tall enough for himself. Now he stood hunched in his front door as his children fed pork and mushrooms to royalty in the middle of the night.

"What the—?" was all he got out before his youngest sons overtook him. Patch ran to be picked up. Hollis was everywhere at once, shouting out, "The school got bombed today, and then there was a troll and I killed it, and some black ghost, and now we know what our medallions are for because they told us."

Ren pulled him back. "Let's let him get in the door first."

"Who bombed the school?" asked Dale, the oldest Draven child, sounding concerned. He was dwarfed behind his father, trying to peer around him.

Dale was twenty. He had black, scraggly hair and was strong but lean like his siblings. "Who do you think bombed the school?" Gabriel asked him.

Darius finally got through the door. He set Patch down and pounded Hollis affectionately on the head. "Hello," he said to the strangers at the table.

"I'm Edem," said the Huntians' teacher, getting swiftly to his feet. "This is Elowyn and Wescott."

"Huntian," Wescott quickly clarified.

It took an hour to get through the meal and the story of the bombing, the troll, the black spirit from the arrow, and the medallions. Patch went to sleep in Ren's arms. They all stared at the wilting flowers in a tomato juice can on the table.

"How long was the ride here?" Darius asked.

"About two days."

Darius cleared his throat uncomfortably. He was as reserved with strangers as Ren. "Well," he said, "It would be no good starting back out tonight."

Hollis was excited that a prince was going to sleep in his room. He was excited that his father and brother were home. And we has still wound up over the killing of the troll. Up the wooden stairs his bare feet went crashing, and even in the kitchen the plates were rattled.

Ren got up silently, aware that Elowyn was watching her. Her little brother's head lolled to her shoulder and his breath blew softly onto her neck as she said something into his ear. Elowyn caught the word "patch."

She started towards the stairway. Elowyn watched the sleeping boy, his black eyelashes long and shadowy.

"His name is Patch?" Elowyn asked.

For the first time, Ren looked straight at the girl. She was shorter than Ren, her skin pale, her eyes a watery blue. 

"Short for Patrick," Ren said.

At two in the morning Elowyn climbed onto the thin mattress beside an open window in the blinding darkness of the Low Country. Ren lay on a braided rug with her arm around the big dog. There was a constant whistle and rustle of the wind, the metal clangor of cicadas, and other high-pitched noises Elowyn could not identify. The frogs were deafening. Just as Elowyn drifted off to sleep, the bone-chilling bay of a coyote jerked her awake. The Dravens slept like they were dead.

Out of habit, Ren was awake as the sun reached her windowsill. In the hallway she peeked into the boys' room. Hollis and Patch were sleeping heavily, sweating on top of their quilt. Across from them, in the other bed, lay the son of the former king. Dale and Gabriel had slept downstairs.

Outside, the two of them were chopping wood for the breakfast fire while Darius cleaned the small fish he had smuggled home last night. Dale smiled when he saw Ren. "Where's the royalty?"

"Sleeping," said Ren.

"Of course," said Gabriel, bringing down the ax hard.

It was a warm morning. Caper grazed green grass with the other horses, friends already. Edem was off in the distance, filling three canteens at the waterfall. "They're leaving?" Ren asked, almost glad, ready to get back to normal life.

"They're staying for breakfast," said Dale. He glanced at the five measly fish on the outdoor table. "What there is of it."

"I don't get it." Gabriel split the last log. He wiped sweat with his arm and looked at his brother and sister. "Edem gives us this big narrative about how whoever finds the medallions is meant to take part in this weird prophecy. And now he's just taking the medallions and leaving us."

"They're taking the medallions?"

"He's taking them to the Black Forest. They want to have some council about the two still missing."

He looked away. But Ren could not be sorry. "Let him have them," she said. "Let him have the whole prophecy. We're too busy looking for our food."

"Which will be the rest of our lives!" Gabriel dropped the ax forcefully. "For the rest of our lives, we'll grovel in the woods while the king gets our money and the refugees steal our food. Unless this thing happens."

Dale cut in. "How do you even know it's true?"

"What if it is and it brings our mother back?"

"She had nothing to do with this!"

"She knew something about Brim." Gabriel looked at Dale and Ren. "Something the rest of us don't know. Not even Dad."

"And you know this how?"

They stopped suddenly as Edem strolled by, going into the house for his leather pack. Their eyes followed him.

Gabriel dug the toe of his boot into the dirt. "I just wish I knew what she knew. I wish she was here."

Patch and Hollis came scampering out in the yard, greeting the day and their unexpected guests. Sable limped after them, wagging. Hollis had overheard the last of the conversation. "What?" he asked.

"Go fill the water buckets," Ren said.

"Let's eat!" Gabriel yelled as Wescott and Elowyn appeared in the doorway. "We'll take you to the outpost for supplies before you leave."

The outpost was no more than a shack in the middle of Crow's Corner. It had separate water pumps for humans and horses. Mail came in by carrier pigeons once every two weeks. It was supposed to sell dry groceries, but those were hard to come by these days. Elowyn looked at a shelf, empty except for three bags of oats, spilled grains of rice, and dust. Gabriel went around suggesting things. "These keep for fifteen years. Good for the road." He shook a tin of hard biscuits and handed it to Edem. "And these." He plucked the last tin of beans from the shelf. "They'll cook right in the can."

At the counter, Edem, Wescott, and Elowyn paid for their goods with silver coins inscribed with Conrad Daley's face. Outside, Wescott bent to read the headlines of the Dailey Daley newspaper. It was two weeks old and mentioned endangered sea creatures, an alcohol tax, and a Bellican national holiday. Elowyn tied her pack to her white mare.

"If you need help," Gabriel said only to her, "you know where we live."

She smiled at him. "I'll remember."

She had light blue eyes. Gabriel had not known that blue eyes were possible. He liked them.

I'm starting to think that someone, somewhere is genetically modifying these people and keeping them being electric fences. You've lived 16 years and you've NEVER seen blue eyes, Gabriel? Do you ever get out of the house?

Edem strode from the store, thanking the Dravens a final time, and Gabriel stood back to let the travelers mount their horses. They faced northeast, to the Black Forest.

"Well, you've seen the Low Country," Edem said, patting Elowyn's shoulder.

The two Huntians and their teacher rode off with the medallions in their pockets. The six Dravens were left behind at the outpost. Darius was telling the little boys to stop chasing each other. Ren was talking to the store owner's wife about grain. She would go home and cook the oysters into stew and soak the salted fish, and when that ran out, she and Gabriel would hunt in the peace of the forest again. Darius and Dale would go off to sea and pay taxes on whatever they plundered back. Hollis and Patch would play in the meadow while they waited for the reopening of their bombed-out school. Life would be exactly as it had been day after day, with the people of the Low Country working cheerfully, and sleeping comfortably in their own beds, oblivious to the screams of people across the ocean dying in mysterious and disturbing ways, but in those still moments was an eerie hush, a wondering what even worse was still to come.

In front of his father and siblings Gabriel flung open the door. "We're coming with you!" he shouted at the departing figures.