Cold Copper

Chapter Nineteen

Out of the blackness came moonlight. And from that moonlight, came Mae. Cedar felt very, very relaxed, more rested than he had felt in at least a decade. There was no pain. It was a wonderful sensation, and he knew it would end soon.

All good dreams must bow to the morning light.

“It is done,” Mae said. She frowned slightly and pressed a cool cloth against his forehead. “The spell is complete. Are you awake? Cedar, can you hear me?”

“Yes,” he said, from both far away and near. Something, something wasn’t right with his body. He felt, strangely, as if he were in two separate places at once. It was…disconcerting.

“Good,” Mae said. “Very good. Let me help you sit.”

She did more than help, as Cedar lost track of where up and down were located while the room seemed to swing into place around him.

There was something at his back—a pillow. And he was sitting on a blanket spread out on the floor. Next to him lay Wil. Only Wil was not in wolf form as he should be. He was once again his brother, needing a shave and a haircut, asleep and covered by a heavy blanket. Around his neck was a thin thread, and on that thread was a cross.

“What?” Cedar cleared his throat and then looked back at Mae. The room didn’t spin this time. Even though it had only been moments, he felt less split in two. “Did you break it? Mae,” he said, unable to hide the relief in his tone, “did you break the curse for both of us?”

“Temporarily,” she said offering him a cup of water, which he drained. “The spell will last a few hours. Perhaps six or seven. That means you’ll need to return to the church before dawn.”

“What happens when the spell wears off?” he asked.

“We don’t know.”

“We?”

She nodded at Father Kyne. He lay on a simple cot, breathing heavy enough Cedar could clearly hear each inhalation and exhalation. His lips were moving. Praying, Cedar realized. He was saying prayers.

He felt something cool at the hollow of his neck and touched it with his finger. He too wore a cross.

“How? What…part in this has Kyne taken? Is he holding the curse at bay?”

“He is carrying your burden,” Mae said. “As is his faith to carry the burden of his fellow man. The binding of the curse hasn’t been broken; it has been…diverted to Father Kyne. I didn’t think it would work. But he insisted to have faith. Faith in God. Faith that a Pawnee curse would rest a while with him, if invited. Faith that God would help him remain strong. So you can hunt for the children. And for the Holder tonight.”

“Wil? Why isn’t he under the curse?”

“The curse was cast on you both. It was meant for you both to carry, each brother light and darkness. We could not lift it and bind it to Father Kyne for one without needing to do so for the other.”

“Is the preacher carrying both curses? The…the weight of both?”

Mae nodded. “I have eased it some, and could only bind it to him in the most shallow of manners. Nothing bone deep. Nothing blood deep. Nothing that will twist his mind. Just…” Here she cast about for words to describe what exactly she did with magic that no other witch could do as well. “It is bound to his faith, for lack of a better way of saying it. To his will. As long as he does not waver in this task, the curse and binding will hold. But it will tire him. And when he tires, the spell will unravel.”

“Is Wil awake?”

“Yes,” a hoarse voice said from the blankets next to him. “Wil is awake. And naked. And hungry. Again.”

Cedar couldn’t help but smile. He had seen his brother too briefly over the last few months, only for the three days over the new moon each month. So this, nearly two weeks before he should have a chance to talk with him, was a welcome happenstance indeed.

“I offered to put pants on you in wolf form. You didn’t seem interested,” Cedar said.

Wil chuckled, then coughed. Mae walked over to him and handed him a cup of water.

He drank, then handed her back the cup. “Mrs. Lindson, you’re looking lovely this evening. I am sorry to catch you in my unavailables.”

“Thank you, Wiliam, but don’t worry about that. I thought we agreed you would call me Mae.”

He rubbed his hand over his eyes, scrubbing at them for a good bit. “That’s right. We did, didn’t we? My apologies, Mae.”

“None needed,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

“Human. As I prefer. Thank you. For that.” He smiled, and that charm he’d possessed since birth shone through. “Though I have a strong hankering for cinnamon. I don’t suppose there’s a stick of it anywhere around these parts? Or a dash of it in tea?”

“Might have something in my coat pocket,” Cedar said.

“Did you hear what it is we intend to do this night?” she asked as she found Cedar’s coat hanging on the chair, and rummaged in his pocket.

“I think so. The Madders are set on us hunting the Holder, because that is what the Madders are always set upon, near as I can tell.” He pushed up and sat, resting his back against the wall without a pillow to ease him. “Father Kyne is hoping we will search for the children. We’ll be looking for the children, won’t we, brother?”

He rolled his head to the side and gave Cedar a knowing look.

Cedar nodded. “Children first.” He didn’t have to add of course. After he’d suffered his own daughter’s death, he’d lost his strength to brush the pain of any child aside. If he could help, he would. “We hunt the Holder at the end of the night, if we have we have time.”

“You never disappoint,” Wil said, not unkindly.

“Put on your pants,” Cedar said. “I’ll find your boots.”

Cedar stood, and was glad there was no pain. He had expected to suffer for this respite of the curse he had carried for so many years. But this was Mae’s spell. She had yet to cause him pain.

“Your things are here, Wil. I brought them from the wagon.” Mae placed a folded stack of clothes on the blanket. “Boots are by the door. Also, this.” She handed him the small cinnamon hard candy Cedar had kept in his pocket.

“Oh…you are an angel,” Wil said as he reverently pulled on the candy’s wax wrapping and held up the disk of sugar like a man studying fine wine.

“Thank your brother. He’s the one who remembered it last town we stopped through. I’ll leave you to dressing.”

Wil popped the candy in his mouth. “God. Oh, God. This…” He closed his eyes, rolling the candy around in his mouth. “How did you know?” he sighed.

“You always want cinnamon when you’re back in your own skin.”

“True. I tried it in wolf once.” He frowned. “It was like licking a rusty pipe. Hideous. But this, this is so…so…” He just closed his eyes again, a smile across his face.

Mae walked out of the room and shut the door behind her.

Cedar stared at the door for a moment, wondering if casting the spell had fatigued or harmed her. She didn’t appear to be overly tired, but then, she often kept such things behind a calm exterior.

“Have you asked her yet?” Wil asked.

“Hmm?” Cedar said, coming out of his thoughts. “Asked her what?” He reached over for his gun belt hanging on the wall peg.

“You know what.”

Cedar did indeed. He had confessed last month in those scant hours when he and Wil could converse that he wanted to marry Mae. He had also said he didn’t know when to ask her.

“It hasn’t even been a year since her husband passed,” Cedar said, plucking up his ammunition belt. “I don’t want her to feel I’m expecting anything of her.”

“You do see the way she looks at you, don’t you?”

“Wil. There isn’t time for that now.”

“There is tonight. And I’ll have plenty of time to convince you that there is an honest woman who I’d love to share our family name with, in a brotherly way.”

“I am aware. Very aware.”

“So then, brother. Do I need to also remind you that most women won’t wait forever? Not in this quickly changing world. What if some handsome man comes along and persuades her away with his wiles?”

“Wil. I have never taken your advice when it comes to matters of the female persuasion. I see no need to be doing so now.”

“Life changes quickly, brother. As I reckon it, you and I change rather quickly ourselves.” He chuckled under his breath and stood up, stretching up onto his toes and reaching fingers toward the ceiling. “Love being tall. Love it. Don’t love being unfurred in this weather, though.” He shivered, then quickly dug about for his undergarments, and pulled those on, followed by breeches, shirt, and an overshirt.

“Socks. I’ve been looking forward to these.” He sat down and bunched up a pair of thick wool socks, then dragged them over his bare toes. “So…snuggly. Ah, my loves, how I’ve missed you. Seriously and completely. I’d wear six pairs, if I had them.”

“Your feet wouldn’t fit in your boots,” Cedar said. Wil was like this when he took man form. No, Wil had always been like this. Enthusiastic about life, with a delight for all sorts of things. His attitude was infectious.

“Almost wouldn’t care,” Wil said. “But this. This is a boot.” He held one up and kissed the top of it, then shoved his foot into it. “Plenty of room in the toe, soft on the arch, royal of bearing. Built for a king.”

“Hurry up, your majesty,” Cedar said. “There’s work to be done.”

“Tell me you don’t love a good boot after tromping around barepads for days on end.” Wil stood and buckled his belt.

“True. Although I’d go without, as long as I could have a cup of coffee.”

“Right, of course. So would I. Speaking of which, are we in luck?”

“We are. Kitchen’s this way.”

“So is Mae, I believe. How are your knees?”

“Why?” Cedar asked.

“Just wondering if you’re capable of a bended one.”

“Won’t be asking her tonight, Wil.”

“If we don’t keep hold on the life we want, it’s likely to just wander away.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve heard you in a philosophical mood,” Cedar said. “Must be the full moonlight’s set you romanticizing.”

Wil laughed. “My words are falling on deaf ears, I’m afraid.”

“For now,” Cedar said, settling his coat over his shoulders and buttoning it up. “We have hunting to do.”

Wil strapped on his gun and gun belt before shrugging into his coat, tugging it straight, and then latching it closed.

Making a point not to meet Cedar’s gaze, Wil said, “Last I knew there were no laws against a man hunting more than one thing at once.”

“I suppose,” Cedar said.

Wil hooked laces up his boots and pulled them tight. “So you’re still not going to talk to her tonight?”

“There are children to save, Wil. Everything else can wait.” Cedar gave his brother a smile. “But the night’s young. I’m of a positive considerance you’re not going to stop talking about it until dawn.”

Wil grinned as he adjusted his hat. “Reckon you know me pretty well.”

They left the room and found Mae waiting in the kitchen. She had on her long coat, a pair of breeches tucked into her boots, and a hat pulled tight to her chin. She was also carrying a shotgun.

“Are you ready then, gentlemen?”

“I’d be wasting my time asking you to stay, wouldn’t I?” Cedar said.

“Yes.” She opened the door. “I’ve hitched the mules to the wagon and filled it with blankets. If we find the children, we’ll need some way to bring them back. I promise I won’t get in your way.”

“I’ve never once worried about that,” Cedar said. Then, “Are you sure you shouldn’t stay with Father Kyne? To see that he’s tended?”

Wil tugged on a thick pair of gloves and worked on settling a length of wool around his throat to cover the grin he was giving Cedar. Ask her, he mouthed.

Mae had, thankfully, turned her attention to the weather through the door’s window.

“Thank you, Mr. Hunt,” she said as she drew her scarf around the bottom half of her face, “for thinking of him. But he will be fine. Now. Let’s hunt for the children so you can hunt for the Holder.”

“Have I mentioned how I always enjoy your company, Mae?” Wil asked. “And my brother, he just can’t stop talking about how much he likes having you around.” Wil stepped outside and gave Cedar a big wink before offering his arm to help steady Mae across the icy ground to the wagon.

Cedar sighed and followed them, closing the door behind him.

For a moment, the world slipped and his vision split in two. He was outside the door to the church and he was inside, lying in a bed, staring at the ceiling, the beast calling his name.

He shook his head and the double vision faded. But for that second, he had seen through his own eyes and through Father Kyne’s. He glanced at Wil, who hadn’t missed a step. He must not be experiencing the same thing.

He considered saying something, but decided this was too rare an opportunity to turn away from. They’d hunt for as long as they were able.

Mae had seen to it there were two horses saddled along with the wagon.

After making sure Mae was settled in the driver’s seat of the wagon, Wil swung up on one of the horses. “I’ve missed this,” he said as Cedar, already in his saddle, sent his mount across the snow. “Would you like me to take the lead?”

“No,” Cedar said. “We can’t strike out into the night on a gut feeling. Not in this weather. Mae?” He took his horse to the side of the wagon. “Is there any kind of spell that might locate the children? I’ve done some hunting and found no real signs of them today other than frozen footprints by the river.”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I tried scrying for them when you were in town.” She shook her head. “Father Kyne gave me this.”

She handed him a pink ribbon. “He said it belonged to Florence, the Peters’ daughter. He didn’t know if it would be useful. Perhaps for a scent?”

Cedar took the ribbon fluttering in her fingers and held it in his palm. The song of the Strange rose soft from that thin strip of silk. The Strange had touched this ribbon. Maybe they had touched the girl who it once belonged to.

He offered the ribbon to Wil. As soon as Wil grasped it, his eyebrows hitched up. “Strange,” he said. “Think you can follow that?”

Cedar nodded. “You can’t?”

“Usually I’d say yes, but this”—he pointed at his chest—“change makes me a little uncertain about the whole thing.”

“Just tell me if you see something I don’t.” Cedar took the ribbon back and placed it in his pocket next to the small piece of copper.

He turned his horse down the lane following the hint of Strange song caught and muffled in the cold wind.

Wil’s senses might feel unreliable, but Cedar’s were very foggy. He could hear the Strange, he could smell them, but he didn’t see a single creature.

When they reached the end of the lane, Wil spoke. “Do you see that?”

Cedar scanned the darkness. “No.”

“There are ribbons of light, like trails tracing along the street.”

“I don’t see anything.”

Wil dismounted.

“What are you doing?” Cedar asked.

“I’m going to find out what they are.” Wil stepped into the center of the street, spreading his bare hands as if trying to catch the nature of the wind upon his fingertips.

“What do you see?” Cedar asked.

“A thin pink string of light runs down the street. There’s other lights, like ribbons in all sorts of colors, coming from all the roads to this one. And none of them are higher than my waist.”

“Do you think it’s the Strange passing through?”

Wil shook his head. “I hear singing, Cedar. Children singing. Laughing. Some are crying. When I stand in these ribbons, I hear their voices. They walked this way, drawn away in the night. Lost.”

“Are you sure?” Cedar asked. “Finding them shouldn’t be this simple.”

“I know.” Wil walked back over to his horse, shaking his hands out as if shedding water. “You really can’t see that?”

“No.”

“So?” Wil asked. “What do you reckon?”

“It’s a trail. A trail the children walked. One ribbon for each child, pouring out of the heart of this city.”

“That’s…convenient,” Wil said. “So you think the Strange made these trails? To lure us?”

“Possibly,” Cedar said.

“We’re going to follow them, aren’t we?”

“We shouldn’t.”

Wil’s eyes crinkled up to make room for his grin. “It is the only trail. If it’s a trap, let’s spring it and move on to the next.” Wil clicked his tongue and urged his horse down the road following the lines of light.

Mae brought the wagon up beside Cedar. “He’s always so full of fire,” she said, not unkindly.

“That he is,” Cedar agreed. “And it has often burned him. He says there’s a clear trail that the children, many, many children followed this way. We’re going to follow it.”

“You sound concerned.”

“I can’t see it, and he can. I know Wil and I perceive the Strange differently, but”—he peered at the road, and at the city ahead of them—“I see nothing of the Strange. At all. Even though it is the full moon.”

“Maybe it’s the spell we cast?” Mae offered.

Cedar shrugged. “And to find a trail lit up bright as a torch and nearly on our doorstep? It’s too easy.”

“You think it’s a trap?”

“It seems likely to be.”

“And Wil?”

“Like you said, he’s filled with fire.”

“So are you,” Mae said. “You just keep a closer mind on the draft.”

Cedar smiled, then set his horse after his brother.

They followed the road in relative silence, the only sounds coming from the city itself and the occasional high drone of airships landing in the field north of town. They passed no more than a handful of souls, a worker coming in on foot from the coal mines, a cart leaving town to farms and fields more distant.

Other than that, it was as if the town were intent on making itself deserted, hidden from what it knew roamed the night.

Wil kept a running report on the trail. It took a sharp turn, looped into a muddled knot, and strung in ragged tatters down a single street into town.

“I’m beginning to think there might be a wild goose at the end of this chase,” Wil said with a grin.

“You’re the one who wanted to spring the trap,” Cedar reminded him. “You know the Strange. They’ll lead a man down a twisted road, then right off the edge of a mountain, if they can catch his eye with a shining light.”

“This doesn’t look like no will-o’-the-wisp,” Wil noted.

“I know,” Cedar said. “That’s why we’re still following it.”

The street widened and grew toothy with cobblestones. One thing the city did well was keep the roads mostly free of ice and snow. But it was full dark now; there would be no need to have workers clearing the roads if there wasn’t going to be anyone using them.

They reached an intersection and Cedar pulled his horse to a stop.

A sound was rising, far off and high, but not in the sky and not carried by the wind. It was growing louder and louder from the earth beneath his feet. Loud enough his and Wil’s horses both whickered and fidgeted, unsettled.

Cedar dismounted, pressed his hand against his horse’s neck to calm him, then knelt, spreading his fingers out across the street.

The sound wasn’t anything he’d heard before. It rumbled, but also hissed and crackled like lightning snapping the sky. And behind it all was a single chord of notes, the trumpet of some great beast.

Something—something big—was beneath the city.

And it was moving, growling, waking up.

“Tell me you hear that,” Cedar said.

“I do,” Wil said.

“Mae, do you hear anything unusual?” Cedar asked.

“No.” She paused, then said, “Yes, like a horn of some kind?”

“Yes,” Cedar said. “If you can hear it, then it’s not a Strange song.”

“Which I couldn’t be happier about,” Wil said. “Their songs lead to dances that last for the rest of your days. Hate to wear out these boots. I’ve barely worn them in.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” Cedar said. “They wouldn’t dance you to death. The Strange only like pretty men.”

Wil let out a loud laugh and Cedar couldn’t help but join him. He’d missed his brother. Missed his laugh. Even though this was not the best of their times, it was still time together. Valuable. And the longer they spent hunting Strange or, hell, the Holder across these states, the more of a chance they’d have to pay on their promises, break the curse for good, and make their days their own again.

He was looking forward to many long years together with his brother. And with Mae.

“It sounds like gears to me,” Cedar said. “It might be the generator we saw in the copper mine.”

“But why would it make this sound? What could it be powering?” Wil asked.

“I don’t know,” Cedar said.

“Huh,” Wil said. “Maybe they know.”

Cedar glanced up at his brother. He was looking west, down the road that jagged between brick and wooden buildings, and beyond that, the fields, forests, and river.

“Who?”

Wil glanced at him, worried. “The Strange. You don’t see them? There’s”—Wil paused—“dozens. Ghostly, but real. Well, real as they get without bodies to possess. Tall as chimney stacks and thin as thread, short and squat like toads.”

“I hear them howling, screaming,” Cedar said. “But I can’t see them.”

“That’s…” Wil lost his voice for a moment, swallowed the words back into place and tried again. “Not right. Something’s wrong with them. Something’s very wrong with the Strange.”

“Talk to me, Wil.”

“They’re coming this way fast. Real fast.”

“Mae, keep tight hold of the mules,” Cedar said. His own horse was dancing and snorting, trying to bolt. Cedar tightened his grip on the reins, but didn’t even try to swing up into the saddle.

The curse that Father Kyne was holding fell around him like an icy cloak. His vision split again. He saw the room where Father Kyne was standing. And watched as he strode through the church and into the night air. He felt the push of the beast, urging Father Kyne out into the night. Needing to kill the Strange. Needing to hunt and run.

“Get out of the way, you damn fool!” a man’s voice yelled.

Cedar blinked and it seemed that the entire world came burning back around him with singular heat and color and light. The vision of Father Kyne was gone.

“Something wrong with your ears?” the man yelled again.

Cedar peered down the other end of the street behind him. Seven men stood in the street, wearing dark-lensed goggles, heavy leather coats and boots, and overlarge gloves more suited to smelting metal. They held wide-muzzled shotguns equipped with copper tubes that connected to a box, which was slung over their shoulders like bulky canteens.

A soft green fire licked around the edges of those copper tubes. Glim. Those guns were powered by glim.

“Mr. Hunt?” a familiar voice asked. “Is that you?”

Cedar recognized the figure driving the steam carriage at the back of the line of men. It was Sheriff Burchell. He also wore goggles, a heavy coat, and a thick scarf around his neck. He carried a slightly different version of the copper-box gun, this one slender with a bayonet fixed at the end.

“I’d move aside, Mr. Hunt. There’s trouble in the air tonight, and you don’t want to be on the wrong end of our guns.”

He said it affably enough, but he was dead serious.

Cedar managed to lead his horse over to Mae’s wagon, which she had tucked up tight against a feedstore.

Wil followed, silent in the darkness. He somehow kept his horse in hand, and stopped next to Cedar.

“Who’s that?” Wil said quietly.

“The sheriff,” Cedar replied.

“Don’t like him.”

“Neither do I,” Cedar said. Then, “Is there something I can help you with, Sheriff?”

“Have an entire posse of men to help me, Mr. Hunt,” Burchell called out over the huffing boiler of his cart. “And you’re about to see just what my forces can do.”

The rumbling beneath their feet grew louder, and brought with it the eerie trumpet call that stroked higher and higher until it was a piercing whine.

The Strange screamed and sobbed. They were crying. Whether from pain or fear or loss, Cedar did not know. But the lawmen spread their feet as if bracing for a wave, and toggled the triggers on their guns.

“Steady,” the sheriff said, his voice loud and strong. “And…fire!”

Seven guns shot out lace-fine netting that crackled with pure bolts of glim.

Seven nets caught seven Strange. And since the Strange were little more than spirits, once the copper and glim struck them, they lit up with an eerie green glow and even Cedar could see them.

Mae gasped, seeing, Cedar knew, for just that moment, the Strange as he and Wil always saw them. He supposed the men with guns saw them too.

“Draw!” the sheriff shouted. “Ready for the rush.”

The men reeled in the nets, fast as starving fishermen, dragging the Strange down the street toward them. Once the nets were in reach, they triggered another lever on the gun and the bellows on the side pumped, sucking the Strange into the copper box.

With a flick of levers, the nets were ratcheted back into the firing chambers and the copper wires snapped with glim again.

“They’ll never be fast enough for the rest,” Wil said.

“The rest?” Cedar asked.

Wil pointed. “The Strange. That mob of them. You don’t see them?”

Cedar shook his head slowly. “No.”

Wil gave him a sideways glance. “That’s not like you.”

“Maybe it’s the magic,” Cedar said. “How many Strange do you see?”

“Dozens. They aren’t crying anymore. They’re attacking.”

Cedar did not move. Neither did Wil. It was disconcerting, almost surreal, to just stand aside while other men fought the Strange, Strange who only became visible to Cedar when the nets struck true.

Those goggles the men wore gave them some kind of sight that picked Strange off the bones of shadows. And those guns fired again, nets snapping, glim crackling, and men reeling in their eerie catch.

But there were twice as many Strange as there were men.

The sheriff stood behind the wheel of the buggy. He’d put his gun down and was tapping on a telegraph key mounted near the buggy’s steering wheel. His fingers flew through code, slinging messages.

Just before the wave of Strange should be upon him, just when Wil told Cedar they had surged past the men he hid behind, suddenly the Strange were gone.

“Blown out like a light,” Wil said.

At that same instant, the moment when the sheriff’s fingers stiffened to a halt, the underground call went silent.

Only the ticking metal of the net guns’ gears rolling the remaining nets into position broke the quiet. Then, from some far off corner in the city, a piano picked out a rambling tune.

The sheriff laughed. “Well done, gentlemen! Well done, indeed. I’d say the citizens of Des Moines are safe for the night. We’ll patrol the streets until dawn, but I’d wager we won’t see more of those nightmares.”

“Is that what those things were?” Cedar asked. “Nightmares?”

Sheriff Burchell tugged at his goggles, and let them fall down into the scarf he wore around his neck. Across the darkened intersection of roads, Cedar could see his smile, friendly as a coyote.

“What you just saw was some of the troubles a civilized town falls upon in this modern age. That was the Strange, Mr. Hunt. I’d think you’d have run across them in your travels.”

“That was more than I’ve ever seen in once place,” Cedar said. “What brings them on like that? Coal? Or is it want for those fancy copper-and-glim guns you have there?”

The sheriff paused, still smiling, but there was something different about how he held himself, as if steel had staked his spine in place.

“Maybe it’s nothing but the moon, Mr. Hunt,” he said, his voice barely glossing over the anger he held in check there. “You know what an odd master it can be. Brings out all sorts of unnatural things at night. Unnatural things in men too.”

“And children?” Cedar asked. “Do you suppose the full moon sends children wandering out of town into the cold arms of winter?”

“I wouldn’t know, Mr. Hunt,” he said with what almost sounded like real concern. “I’ve seen to it that we have patrols of men on the streets every night. Folk have taken to tying their children to the bedpost and locking every door and window. And still there are empty cradles in the morning. I don’t think that’s the moon’s fault. I blame the very creatures we just burned off of the street.”

“Burned?”

“Those guns carry boxes packed with hot coals. Once the Strange are sucked in there, they never come back out. Like straw up a chimney flue.”

“You’ve thought this through,” Cedar noted.

“You can thank the mayor for that. He knows what’s best for this town, and sets to seeing that it’s done. But now we have roads to cover. Good night to you and yours, Mr. Hunt.”

He pressed the throttle down, and the carriage rumbled to life, the back stacks puffing a thick cloud of smoke that rolled upward like the edge of an ocean wave, silvered by the moonlight. The other men turned and followed him.

“Well, he was unpleasant, wasn’t he?” Wil said.

“He knows something,” Mae said. “Something about the children, I think. But he is right: there is no power the full moon can give to take children away.”

“What about a spell?” Cedar asked.

“Witches?” Mae didn’t sound very surprised. Cedar wondered if she’d been thinking that could be a possible cause for the children’s disappearance for some time now. “It’s…I think there are some spells that can send someone wandering. And the full moon brings most magic strength. But magic doesn’t lend to wicked ends. The very practice of magic is peaceful, gentle. Tried and true.”

“What did you just say?” Cedar asked, as a memory slipped through his mind.

“Magic is gentle?”

“The last thing.”

“Tried and true.”

He had heard those words before. Heard them from a man. “Is that a saying among witches? That magic is tried and true?”

Mae nodded. “I suppose it is. When I lived in the coven we said it often enough. The old spells are the best for they are tried and true. Why?”

“I’ve heard it recently. From a man. But I can’t remember where or who.”

“Father Kyne?” Wil suggested.

Cedar shook his head. “I don’t think so. It’s something more. It feels important.”

“Well, the trail’s gone cold. No more ribbons of light,” Wil said.

The side of Cedar’s neck stung, and he cupped his palm over it to ease that pain.

“So how about we follow that trail instead?” Wil pointed to the mouth of an alley, at the figure standing there. Not a man—well, not a man made of flesh and bones. It was a Strange, the Strange Cedar had seen three times now.

Instead of bits of wood and dirt, it was made of things found in the city. Scraps of cloth, torn newspaper, and wrappers off bottles and crates that formed the arms, legs, and body, along with bits of wire, rusty nails, a broken watch fob, and a sparkle of glass. All those pieces seemed to be constantly moving, as if a small wind tangled them together to make the humanish shape of the creature.

Even with all those castaway bits of life giving it shape, the eyes were not human. And they were very much not alive.

They were nothing but the ghostly light of the Strange. It raised one hand. And in that hand was the pink ribbon—Florence’s ribbon.

Then it opened its mouth and whispered softly, “Help her.”