Gran wouldn't let the girl back outside when she offered to take apple cores to the horses.

"One fright a day's enough to keep this old woman's heart healthy."

The girl let her hands drop coreless to her sides. She stalked off to the bedroom.

As Gran turned toward him, Mat hastily returned his attention to the pot above the cookfire, pushing clams around with a stick. It was the first moment alone they'd had since Gerrard made his surprise visit, and Mat hadn't decided whether to tell the old woman the identity of the mystery corpse.

"So?" she said, pulling up a chair.

"So," he said, feeling the opportune time to tell her slipping away.

"What'd ya talk about in that hidey hole of yours? You were down there for quite awhile"

"Gardening mostly."

"Ah. Seems to really like the work," she said, rubbing her bad knee. "Well, she doesn't complain about the work. With that dull stare, I can't fathom what that girl likes."

Mat surprised a snide retort.

"And?"

"And, what?" he said with eyes only for the clams.

"Did you talk to her about that man?" she said testily.

Mat had wondered whether the girl thought about the dead man as much as he and Gran. Now he knew.

He nodded.

"And?" The legs of her chair creaked as she leaned in.

He and Gran didn't keep secrets. Not big ones.

His biggest was how bad his mother got before Gran whisked him away. Soon after his arrival here, they adopted a silent understanding not to discuss her. Nothing worse had ever happened. Their lives were simple, never carried out more than a couple of hundred feet from one another. But he had someone else to think about now. He often wondered if what kept Gran from pushing the girl out was her belief that her stay was temporary. How might she react if he ripped that possibility out from under her?

He chanced a glance at her and lost all confidence. It was too soon for the truth.

"Swears she didn't know him."

"Foundlings. What about wherever she came from?"

Chiding himself for not having anticipated this incredibly logical next question, he said: "It's like she doesn't fully remember," wincing at such a lame reply.

"Poor thing probably has amnesia—

"Those clams are burnin', boy."

Sure enough, thin wisps of smoke nipped at his nose. He pushed them around, then darted to the counter for a bowl to scoop them into, unable to believe his good fortune—she believed him!

After dinner, Mat was lounging in his grandmother's armchair and the girl sitting cross-legged at the hearth, a book open in her lap, when Gran tore into the cottage, slamming the door behind her. Mat peered lazily over the back of the chair as the old woman huffed and puffed to the pantry where she made a racket, before peeking her head out and violently waving him over.

He bit back a yawn. "What is it?"

Gran's eyes darted around, loose in their sockets. "I went to the cellar to tally our remaining food stores—I thought we still had a couple pounds of dried salmon,"

The yawn escaped him. "So?"

"So, we're out of meat. There's nothing but dried mushrooms, pickled eggplant and salt down there. That girl's eaten us out of house and home."

"I'll just go into Myst—"

"You will not leave me alone with her." Her voice dripped with fear.

Her crudeness knocked the languor right out of his head. He hadn't expected his point to be proven so soon—Gran couldn't shake her old ways, her old notions.

"Then, you go—"

"I can't," she said incredulously.

"Why not?"

"No one in town's gonna rush forward to help this old bag of grizzled bones down and up onto a horse. I'd have to walk, and my hips keep seizing up."

Gran peered over his shoulder at the girl like a spider the size of an anvil sat in the corner and her heart was going to give the second it moved.

Mat stepped into her line of sight. "I have to go, then, don't I?"

Her mouth moved wordlessly before she clamped it shut with a grunt.

"As it warms up, it's suspicious us not going into town anyway."

She chewed on her lip. "Gerrard did ask where we've been."

"It's settled, then."

When he turned toward the hearth, the girl quickly looked back at her book.

The moment Gran fell asleep in her chair, Mat persuaded the girl to help him prepare the items he'd barter in town.

Standing in the doorway to the pantry with a lantern, Mat told her what he needed and she grabbed clay jars and ceramic vials, her lips making the shapes of the words as she scanned the shelves.

In the end, containers of aloe vera, birch oil, caraway pods, garlic, and foxglove leaves were stacked on the dining table.

"This one has a silly name," she said, holding the foxglove. "What's it do?"

"Extract from the leaves can help with coughs and heart palpitations."

Her face pinched at the last word.

"Hiccups."

Gran stirred, giving them pause. She choked on a snore, then stilled.

Mat gestured for the girl to follow him to the mini gardens Gran kept suspended in plant boxes on a wall in her bedroom. The girl milled about in the doorway like a trap laid in wait before finally coming inside. He took a tiny stone blade from his belt and showed her how to cut aloe vera and lavender.

"I have to go into town tomorrow to barter these things, so it'll be only you and Gran for a time."

Her hand slipped and she nicked herself.

"Nothing to worry about." He took the knife from her so she could stem the bleeding. "But try to stay out of her way. If the weather's fine, she'll stay outside."

"She still doesn't like me much."

"Give her time. Gran huffs and she puffs, but she'd do anything for family. Patched you up so your innards wouldn't fall out, didn't she?"

Her brow knitted in thought, she bled absently on the aloe.

A palpable tension hung over the table the next morning at breakfast. Gran dropped her fork more than once and the girl cut up her eggplant with such surgical precision, taking such small bites that he was convinced she'd still be at the table when he returned.

For the trip, he prepared Bethsheba, a grey mare with white hairs around her snout, and secured his medicine bag to saddle. When it came time for him to leave, the girl stood by the mare, petting her with fastidious determination as Gran watched from the porch.

"When I get back, we can stay up late, play games. OK?"

She gave him a scathing look, making his insides lurch, before stalking back to the cottage. Gran's mouth curled when the girl came to stand beside her.

Stomach churning with trepidation, Mat hoisted himself atop Bethsheba. He gave a wave before taking off.

Neither waved back.

A single dirt road ran as an artery through Myst. From it, cobbled stone walkways terminated at single-floor, wattle and daub houses, and behind them were pastures where cattle grazed. Further down toward the docks that sat in what was too small to be called a harbor, a humble lineup of shops dotted the road: Lamb Chops, the butcher shop; The Golden Dear, a leather shop and shoe repair; Cat's Crumble, the bakery; Walt's Woodworks, which sold everything from handmade furniture to bird whistles; and Mad Hare, the tavern. An old man with a handlebar mustache and a shaved head named Burl Buchanan didn't have a shop but did have a stone shed in his backyard for blacksmithing and stonesmithing whenever a neighbor needed a horseshoe repaired or a skinning knife made.

That dirt road sprung up in the weeds and ended in the weeds; Myst was a hamlet made for passing through.

Between it and the Burnt Forest, a stone hedge cleaved through the pastures. A man named Wil Huckabee constructed it in a single night, using clay, dirt and hay to patch the seams. He lost his only son in those woods, or so he claimed—some speculated a vagrant scooped him up, stole him away; others gossiped the unparalleled love his wife had for the toddler soured his own heart and he buried that boy among the skeleton trees. The way Wil told it, he had chopped down an old birch tree and was throwing the wood into a wheelbarrow on the edge of the Burnt Forest when he turned and his son was gone, quicker than his short, stubby legs could have carried him away. Wil dashed into the forest. Night fell and he got lost. The next morning, he woke within view of the tree line. Childless. Hysterical with grief, his wife beat him in the road before throwing herself from a cliff overlooking the bay half a moon later. After that, Wil built his wall, grumbling about twisted specters and bonespooks. But he ran out of stones. So, he rushed out to Sharkmaw Bay—named for the inlets and crags sticking out from the shore—in a rickety fishing boat and never returned. "Boat likely sunk under the weight of all those rocks," the gossips speculated.

Not a soul bothered to finish the venture.

Most of the fishing boats tethered in that bay fit no more than four men. The largest boat—arguably big enough to be called a ship—belonged to Captain Agatha Einarsson who never failed to remind those who didn't asked. Her crew sold their catches on crude tables under a moth-eaten awning near the docks. It was there Mat steered Bethsheba.

Gerrard waved at Mat from his front yard, surrounded by magnolia shrubs peppered with white flowers, bleeding centers. Mat raised his hand in greeting but kept on moving, in no mood to dawdle while Gran watched the girl with all the fear of one whose dog has been bitten by a coon and is waiting for the rabies to set in.

The smell of brine filled the air as he approached the docks.

Captain Agatha haggled with a customer while two of her men gambled at a nearby table, obviously drunk, curiously arguing over who was the better man.

"O', I always tol' Meg she was missing ou' on gettin' her a fine man by no' snatchin' ya up," the burly one with the unibrow hiccupped. "No' she's afta tha bloke tha wears his britches tight as a priss—"

"Wi' a fine brotha like you, she set 'er sights too high!" the other wearing an eyepatch above a perfectly good eye said. He slapped unibrow on the shoulder, spilling his beer over the hand-painted cards between them.

Neither noticed.

A third lounged in a chair, head back and snoring while flies circled above his gaping mouth.

"Now, wha' am I gonna do with a scarf on the high seas, eh?" Captain Agatha waved her hand dismissively at the bay.

A paunch man the color of a dead sea slug cowered, clutching a feathery scarf to his chest.

"I gave you all else that I have—"

"And I said, that's enough for a dozen clams—"

"That won't last my family a day!"

Captain Agatha swung around and kicked the sleeping man's chair. He sputtered awake.

"Ein, pack up a dozen clams for this man."

Ein stood up so fast that he nearly careened into the table, grabbed a crate obviously intended for much more fare, and started tossing in the clams.

"You want vinegar on those?" the captain asked.

The customer shook his hung head, the scarf trailing in the dirt.

Mat hopped off Bethsheba and unhooked his knapsack.

"Ah, here's a boy willing to barter fair," she grinned, inked arms invitingly open, the sun glinting on her septum ring.

The captain always had so much hair tied back in a knotty, blonde braid, Mat often wondered how she stood up straight.

Ein shoved the crate into the poor man's hands who looked sadder than a hog on its way to slaughter.

Captain Agatha wiggled her nose at him impatiently. "Mr. Deckard, I suggest you learn how to fish."

At that, Deckard took his leave.

Her grin widened as Mat approached. Ein was already back in his chair, snoring.

"Matty, when are you going to join my crew, eh? Strong lad like you can't dapple in mediocrity on his ol' gran's farm forever."

"She'd wring my neck if I tried to take up with you."

"Hey, I'd take real good care of ya—besides," she said, leaned in close and added behind her hand: "Ein here's getting old and weak in the gut—"

"But my ears work just fine," Ein said without opening his eyes.

She grimaced but lit up when Mat dropped the knapsack on her table slick with guts and scales.

"Six salmon, please."

"Six?! Your Gran got one of those iceboxes like they got up north? Boy, you two can't eat six salmon before they spoil."

When Mat opened the sack, her lips compressed.

"Guess you won't be needing these caraway pods for Ein's weak gut, then, or so much lavender oil for Maxwil's crippling anxiety during those thunderstorms, but what will you do when Ike finally gets rid of that eye he's so determined to lose?"

"Ah, the country bumpkin's got a sense of humor," Ein said, eyes still clamped shut until one of those flies finally landed on his front tooth.

Captain Agatha made a rude noise like a cat coughing up a furball. "What do I care what you do with the merchandise? Let it rot in your gran's cellar, and I'd be none the wiser," she said, already plucking up wares and putting them in a crate.

She paused to kick Ein's chair. "Ein," she growled. "Crate 'em up!"

He did as he was told, pocketing a few with the containers tagged lavender oil.

"Oh, nonono," Captain Agatha said, wrestling a container labeled foxglove out of Ein's hand. "I don't want no more of this devilish stuff. I had a new lad on the ship who got into this to cure his burning heart and keeled over dead." She shoved it back into the bag.

"You've gotta be extremely careful with the dose, I told you how much to use. And it's not for heartburn."

"You think these fools can keep that claptrap straight in their melons?"

Ike and Maxwil were now rolling around on the ground fighting.

Mat agreed to bring her ginger root and chamomile next time.

"Give it a thought, eh!" Captain Agatha called as he hoisted the knapsack now full of salmon atop Bethsheba. "I could use a deckhand like you."

"Then who would keep your crew alive?" he called back, swinging up onto the horse.

Back on the road, he stalled outside Cat's Crumble, breathing in the scent of freshly baked bread. He'd made an unfortunate habit of going in to admire everything he couldn't afford whenever he made a trip into town. Not today. He had to get back.

"Hey, Wil," he greeted a grizzly man known around town as Whistling Wil because he whistled when he talked thanks to a hole in his throat. No one knew how he got it; Wil told a different story every time he was asked.

"Hey, boy. Haven't seen ya around town since the thaw. How's that gran of yours?"

"Good, busy with the planting. Tell me, where's the Deckard house?"

He turned to point. "Beside Lamb Chops."

Mat thanked him, then pulled up beside the small house with a thatched roof bowing on one side. With two salmon wrapped in burlap in hand, he made his way to the door, eyeing a young, lithe man with sharp cheekbones and oily red hair pulled back into a thin ponytail, whose name he could not remember, slicing open a pig on a table outside the butcher shop. He gave a wave with a bloody hand, then wiped it on his even bloodier apron. Mat nodded and knocked with an elbow. It wasn't until he stared at the grain, waiting for the door to open, that he noticed the racket inside. Shouting, then "Get the door!"

It opened so fast and wide that Mat took a step back and blinked dumbly over Mr. Deckard's shoulder at a very angry looking woman, hands on her hips, iron in her eyes.

"Yes, what is it?" Mr. Deckard said impatiently.

"Ah. I was behind you—at the docks—"

"I remember. The boy with the spices."

"Medicinal herbs."

"So?" he spat.

Mat started to regret his coming.

"Well, I bartered these and...thought you might...you know," he said, holding out the fish, silently begging the man to take them.

Hands fastened to his sides, Mr. Deckard poked his head outside and glanced around like this was some joke the whole town was in on.

"You being funny with me, boy?"

"No."

"You think we need your charity—"

"Simon," Mrs. Deckard chided, shoving him aside. "It's pure kindness, is what it is," she smiled, taking the fish, "and I for one, am not too proud to take it. How gracious."

Simon was shrinking before his eyes, backing slowly away.

"You're that old woman's grandson, the one that lives on the other side of that hill," she said.

Mat nodded, wanting to inch away himself.

"Well, she raised a fine man. Not like my Simon," she said, the vile creeping back into her voice, then promptly shut the door in Mat's face.

Blood from the pig creeped into the tail of his eye as it swirled around the gulping drain below the table.

Without another glance at Lamb Chops, Mat mounted Bethsheba and started for home.

Gran was digging in a garden when he crested the hill. Shielding her eyes, she gave a small wave. The girl was nowhere in sight.

As he approached, the old woman kept her eyes on the dirt.

"Well, how'd it go?"

Gran made a face like the bottom half distrusted the top. "Fine."

"Where is she?"

"Inside, I'd imagine."

Unsure what he should make of this if anything at all, Mat bit his tongue, hopped off Bethsheba and strode inside. Sure enough, the girl was on the floor in her bedroom, reading a book.

"Everything all right?"

She nodded, her face that usual blank slate.

"Come outside and help me cut up the fish."

They sat around a wide, flat rock past the stables. Face scrunched up in disgust, she mimicked his technique, cutting the flesh away from the backbone and ribs, scoring the fish to create folds.

"It's a healthy smell, believe it or not."

"It's not that," she said, tight-lipped. "It's staring at me."

Mat laughed but turned it into a cough when she glared at him accusingly.

She balled up her fist around the knife and shoved her chin in the air. "I don't like meat," she said, as if daring him to suggest otherwise.

"Okay," he said, unsure where this was going.

"I won't eat it anymore."

His lips twitched as his brain played catchup. "Why didn't you say so before?"

Her chin dipped and uncertainty skipped across her face. She shrugged.

Great. One more thing for Gran to gripe about.

"Must'a given that girl a fright showing her your dungeon," Gran said that evening, looking out the window.

Having eaten both his and the girl's portion of salmon when the old woman wasn't looking, Mat lounged in the armchair, nursing a swollen stomach.

He mumbled a puzzled inquiry before realizing she must mean the hideout in the Burnt Forest, the cavern she'd never seen thanks to her bad knees.

Gran nodded toward the field. "She's out there slashing, fending off imaginary adversaries."

Too tired for damnable riddles, he slid from the armchair like a fat cat and ambled over to the window where he saw the girl parrying with a stick this side of the fence.

A twinkle danced in the old woman's eyes. "Never fear any villagers making a stink from town. We've got our own little vagabond looking to spill their guts should they make mischief."

Grumpy that his lounging had been interrupted, Mat scrunched up a mocking face on his way out the door and swung it shut before Gran could utter a reproach.

"What'cha doing?" Mat asked, stifling a yawn.

The girl's movements had grown rigid upon his approach and she quit them all together at his question. Instead, she took up prodding the dirt with the pointy end of her stick.

"Practicing," she said, breathily.

"For what?"

She shrugged.

"You're missing a partner, aren't you?"

Nothing.

"Is this about the wolf?"

A ballsy glare was her only answer.

"Look, it was a freak thing that wolf attacking you. It was starving. Gran's lived here all her ancient life and I a handful of orbits—neither of us had ever seen a wolf 'til that night."

"You think it was really a wolf, then?"

His heart tripped at the insinuation. "What else would it have been?"

Back to poking the dirt.

"You needn't practice for a pack. We're going to stick together, you and I."

Her brow deepened. "You shouldn't make promises you can't keep. You can't watch me all the time. Not forever."

Mat balked. "I didn't promise."

She quit slashing the dirt and looked up at the sky. "What is that?" she asked, her tone entirely changed.

"What's what?"

"That noise."

Mat guessed what she must be talking about before he heard it. Sure enough, a moment later, that familiar sound—buzzing, like a plague-sized swarm of bees were headed their way.

The girl scrunched up her face, wildly searching for the unseen. Her eyes went wide as the black airship mounted the tree line behind the cottage.

"That noise," she mumbled. Sap trickled from her nose to hover on the ridge of her upper lip.

"You're bleeding," he said. Sapping, he thought.

"I know that noise."

"It's an Episteme."

"Episteme," she said dreamily. The sap slipped over the edge and into the crevice of her lips.

"You're bleeding," he repeated impatiently. Mat pulled his sleeve over his hand, tilted her head toward him and wiped her nose.

Her eyes stayed trained on the ship, blots of ink seeping across golden yokes.

"You know—the airships humans crash landed on Helithica, then used in the Great War to vaporize the fairies."

Her nosebleed not letting up, she looked to him with the wide eyes of a child burdened with an adult secret.

Maybe not.

"When the war was won, the ships were deemed weapons of mass destruction and destroyed—or so we thought."

He gave up on stemming the flow as she looked back to the ship chugging across the darkling sky, blotting out what stars had made an early appearance.

"Gran says we're creatures of habit of apocalyptic proportions. Capable of great things but great blunders, too." He paused, thinking. "I heard that on the Gone World they had more books than people were willing to read. I can't imagine that. Access to all that knowledge, and still they nuked their own planet."

"What do they want?" she asked in her manner of asking odd questions.

"Nobody knows, it never lands. Not here."

"How did it vapo...vape--"

"Vaporize."

"How did it vaporize the faeries?"

He shrugged. "Lasers, I think. That's what Mother said."

Only once the airship had finally sailed beyond the horizon did the girl put up her own sleeve to staunch her leaky nose.

"You know about the Great War, don't you?"

If she heard him, she gave no indication.

Mat pulled on her other sleeve. She swayed beneath his touch and briefly looked at him as if seeing him for the first time.

"Come on. Let's go inside."