Raising his head, he looked at me. “Mollie’s mam feed me, but doesn’t like me. You doesn’t like me.” For a moment, he looked sad, but then he smiled at the beetle perched on his thumb. “Bugs like me, Madog like me.”

  I looked at Guest, really looked at him, something I hadn’t ever done. He was still an ugly little thing, no argument there. His skin was pale, his mouth wide and thin-lipped, his teeth small and crooked as a row of pebbles. Flyaway yellow hair hung in his eyes and straggled down his neck.

  But the biggest change was his size. Surely he’d grown faster than a human baby. He was still scrawny and bowlegged, but he was already the size of a five-year-old.

  He’d stopped hitting and biting. He ate regular food, he trudged along on his two feet, and he seemed to talk better every day.

  I watched him play with the beetle. How gentle he was. A village boy would most likely torment a beetle. He’d pull off its wings and legs. Maybe even step on it and laugh. I’d seem them do it just to make girls scream.

  But not Guest.

  He looked up at me, as if he sensed I was watching him.

  I pointed at the beetle. “Your bug is sitting on your nose now. Doesn’t that tickle?”

  Guest looked cross-eyed at the beetle. He laughed and moved the little creature to a patch of moss. We watched it crawl into the ferns.

  “Bug go home,” he said. “We go home?”

  “When we find Thomas.” I stood up and shouldered my pack.

  As dusk darkened into night, we made beds for ourselves in a tree’s cradle of roots. Guest gathered wood, and I used my flint to light a fire.

  By the time we’d eaten our meal of cheese, bread, and an apple each, it was full night. In the Dark Lands, that meant black in a way night never was in Lower Hexham. The ever-present mist hid the stars and the moon, and the trees wove themselves together, trunk and limb, into a black wall. “Look there.” Guest pointed. “Something coming.”

  “Lights,” I whispered. “Dozens of them. What is it?”

  Guest pulled me down beside him. “Hide.”

  “But I want to see!” I stood up. The lights twinkled like fireflies, but as they came closer, they were more like tiny lanterns, dancing back and forth, swinging this way and that, now lighting the ground, now lighting the trees with a strange greenish glow. “Look, Guest. Aren’t they beautiful?”

  Guest tugged me so hard, I toppled down beside him. “Do what Madog say. Listen, Mollie! They come for you.”

  Even though I longed to stand up and watch them, I crouched beside him. The lights looked harmless enough, but I’d promised Madog I’d listen to Guest.

  As the lights came closer, I saw the creatures holding the lanterns. They weren’t as pretty as I’d expected them to be. Wearing tattered leaves and cobwebs, they were wrinkled like old men and women. The air around them echoed with their cries, a high-pitched whine that buzzed in my head and made it impossible to think.

  “Mollie, Mollie,” they cried. “Come with us. We have a surprise for you, something you long for, something dear to you, your heart’s desire. Come, come!”

  Guest grabbed my hand and held tight. “Tricks and lies. No listen. Cover ears.”

  I tried to pull away, crazy now to follow them, sure they’d lead me to Thomas, but Guest had grown stronger. I could not break his grip on me.

  All at once, they surrounded us, hundreds of them, no bigger than wasps. They dazzled our eyes with their lanterns and deafened us with their cries. No longer pretending to be friendly, they pinched, they bit. They pulled our hair as if they meant to yank it out. They tore our clothes as if they wished to strip us to our bare skin.

  We swatted them, but they swarmed around us like midges. We could do nothing to drive them away or to protect ourselves.

  “Locket!” Guest screamed.

  In desperation, I yanked the chain from my dress and thrust it into their midst. At its touch, the creatures shrieked in pain and spiraled upward. In seconds, they’d vanished into the darkness of the trees.

  “Tinies. Kinde Folke send them,” Guest said. “They leads you into swamps and drowns you.”

  “I’ve never seen them before, but Dadoe has. He calls them will-o’-the-wisps or hinky punks.”

  “Good you listen me this time.”

  I should have thanked him, but I didn’t want him to think too much of himself. He was right this time, but maybe not always.

  * * *

  In the morning, I filled the water jug from a stream, and we trudged deeper into the gloomy forest. A crow watched us from a high branch and then flew away silently. I saw him vanish into the gloom, most likely on his way to tell the Kinde Folke where we were.

  Guest plodded beside me, his skinny arms swinging by his side, his head down, his ears red from the Tinies’ bites.

  “How much farther is it?” I asked.

  “Far,” he said. “Or not far.”

  “You sound like Madog.”

  “Madog knows more than me. Much more than you.”

  “That’s because you’re a changeling, and I’m not.”

  We walked on through the endless dim forest. Tree roots humped and twisted across the path, reaching out like long arms and fingers to trip us. Mist clung to our skin and hair, soaking our clothing and all our belongings. It was a wonder Guest and I weren’t covered with moss like the trees and the rocks.

  No matter how many miles we traveled, we saw no sign of the Kinde Folke. Sometimes we heard distant laughter, sometimes music, but we couldn’t tell where it came from. The wind blew oddly, now this way, now that, and the leaves slithered overhead like snakes.

  Exhausted, I leaned on a stout stick I’d found along the way. My boots pinched my toes and blistered my heels. My pack chafed my shoulders and weighed too much for the little it held.

  Pulling out the water jug, I drank and handed it to Guest.

  “Not too much,” I warned. “We haven’t crossed a stream for miles.”

  Guest gulped and passed the jug back to me. His ears twitched like a rabbit’s. “Listen. Something’s making noise.”

  Guest had no sooner warned me than I heard a loud rustling in the ferns. They swayed as if the wind were blowing, and out stepped a person I never expected to see in the Dark Lands.

  “Well, well,” Granny Hedgepath said. “Whom do I see but Mollie Cloverall from Lower Hexham.”

  I stared at her, speechless with surprise.

  She laughed and came close enough for me to smell her familiar odor of smoke and damp earth and herbs. “What’s wrong, girl? Cat got your tongue?”

  “Granny,” I stammered. “What are you doing here?” For the first time ever, I was glad to see her.

  “Why, you never know where I’ll turn up,” she said. “I’m a wanderer, I am. I go here and there and everywhere.”

  Guest squeezed my hand as if he was scared.

  “You remember Granny,” I said to him. “She lives on the other side of Cat Tail Hill, not far from Mam and Dadoe.”

  He said nothing, but his face screwed up like he smelled something bad. Ducking behind my skirt, he peered at her. Granny had that effect on people, I thought, scaring them with her strange ways and words, but meeting her here in the Dark Lands seemed good luck. Perhaps she’d seen something that would help us.

  “You done what you said you’d do,” Granny said. “I thought it were a foolish boast from a foolish girl, but here you be far from home, and it still with you.”

  “I’ve not found the Kinde Folke yet. Do you know where they hide themselves?”

  “Indeed, I do. They been helping me find my roots and berries.” She held up the basket she carried, and I saw a heap of dead plants.

  Her wrinkled face split into a grin. “Come with me, the two of you, and I’ll take you to them.”

  “Did you see Thomas? Is he well?”

  “Oh, he’s very well, indeed. Those ones take good care of him. Yes, they do.”

  “And I’ve taken good care of Guest. See how he’s grown? He walks and talks now. He—​”

  “Oh yes,” she cut in. “But he’s what he is, ain’t he? And always will be.”

  She spat on the ground almost at Guest’s feet. “You done wasted your time dragging him along with you. They got no use for his kind.”

  I held Guest’s hand tighter. “Will the Kinde Folke give me Thomas?”

  “Well, you just come along with me, Mollie. I’ll take you straight to the queen herself, and she’ll give you Thomas. Yes, indeed, she will, oh yes, indeed.” Granny laughed and clapped her hands.

  Guest whimpered and tugged at my skirt. Embarrassed, I swatted his hands away. “Don’t be rude, Guest. Say hello to Granny, show her how much you’ve learned.”

  Guest hid his face in my skirt and said not a word.

  Granny laughed. “He ain’t no different. Just bigger.” She reached for my hand. “Come along with me if you want to see Thomas. I ain’t got all day.”

  Guest tried to pull me away from Granny. I bent to look at his face. “What is wrong with you?”

  He shook his head and pointed at Granny.

  The old woman laughed again. “He don’t like me, do he?”

  “He’s just tired, as I am. We’ve come so far.”

  “That you have, but come, come along with me. Soon you’ll have your Thomas and be rid of that one and be on your way home.”

  With Guest trying to hold me back, I trudged into the ferns after Granny. “How is Mam?” I asked her. “And Dadoe, did he come back? Do they miss me? Are they worried?”

  “Hush, child, everyone is fine. Your father’s home and your mother’s a-blooming with health. Happy they are that the changeling is gone. But sad to lose both their children.”

  I took Guest’s hand and tried to tow him after me, but he dug his heels into the earth and refused to move. “It’s all right,” I whispered to him. “She’s taking us to the Kinde Folke. Be nice, Guest.”

  Granny smiled at me. I’d never noticed what a foxy grin she had. Perhaps I’d not seen a smile on her grumpy face before now.

  “Thomas will be right happy to see you, Mollie. That he will. And the Kinde Folke, too. Such a brave girl to come all this way. Yes, indeed. They got a grand feast all ready for you . . .”

  It was odd, but the more Granny talked, the less I understood. Her words had become a stream of water running over smooth stones, soothing but senseless.

  After what seemed miles, we came to a hollow in the ferns. Granny’s endless talking had made me dizzy. I swayed on my feet, feeling as if I could barely stand.

  “Oh, dear me, Mollie, look at you, about to topple over.” Granny helped me sit down in the ferns. “Rest you right here. I’ll go fetch Thomas.”

  Before she left, she took a pretty little blue bottle out of her basket. “This is my elixir of health,” she said. “Drink it and you’ll soon feel fit to greet Thomas.”

  I took the bottle eagerly, thirstier than I’d ever been in my life. “Thank you,” I whispered.

  “I’ll be back in a trice.” With a laugh, Granny disappeared into the ferns.

  I pulled out the stopper and lifted the bottle to my lips, but before I took one sip, Guest leapt out of the ferns and knocked the bottle out of my hand. Its contents poured onto the ground. Although Guest tried to shoo it away, a butterfly dipped down to drink from the puddle of elixir. In a moment, it lay still and the ferns around it withered.

  I stared at the dead butterfly, my head spinning with thirst. “Surely Granny never meant to poison me. The Kinde Folke must have tricked her.”

  Guest shook his head. “She not Granny. Kinde Folke magic.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He pointed to his mouth. “Granny taken my words. I pulled you, I tugged, I made faces, but . . .” He shrugged.

  I bowed my head and started to cry. “Oh, Guest, I believed her, I thought she’d bring Thomas. I was sure she would.”

  He began pulling and tugging at me again. “Not safe here. We go back to path.”

  Staggering to my feet, I ran with Guest, but the path wasn’t where we thought it should be. In growing fear, we pushed through tall grasses and stumbled into bogs, sinking ankle-deep, sometimes knee-deep before we pulled our feet free. We made our way through clumps of heather that clung to our ankles and tripped us. I lost my walking stick and almost left a boot in a bog. Strange voices called our names. Muffled by dense gray air, they seemed to surround us, but we couldn’t tell where they came from or how close they were. Midges with bites as sharp as the Tinies’ teeth swarmed around us.

  Just when I thought I couldn’t take another step, Guest cried out, “Mollie, the path, the path. I see it!”

  I stumbled out of the woods behind Guest. The white stones bordering the path glowed softly in the dusk. The voices calling us faded into the distance. For now, at least, we were safe.

  9

  * * *

  WE SLEPT BADLY THAT night, hiding ourselves as best we could under a ledge of rock. In the morning, we went on, our bodies stiff and weary, our bellies empty.

  The land around us was studded with boulders and tall rock formations, dull and gray. Not a village, not a farmhouse, not a man, woman, or child to be seen. No birds. No animals. Not even a breeze to stir the air. Just Guest and me. Alone in the Dark Lands.

  Days and nights, nights and days, streamed past like leaves blown in the wind. I’d lost count of them long ago. It seemed as if we’d been walking for a week, a month, a year, a hundred years. Like everything in this land, time moved to different laws. Nothing seemed fixed or certain.

  There were times when I was no longer sure of anything—​not even Guest. I could not think who he was or why we were here and not at home with Mam and Dadoe. Or if Mam and Dadoe still existed. Or had ever existed.

  After days or maybe weeks of walking, we stopped to rest by a stream. We’d been eating frogs and fish we caught in streams, berries, and sometimes a rabbit or a squirrel Guest managed to trap. Guest was so skinny, I could count his ribs.

  We were tired and weak from hunger, but the stream’s mossy bank was quiet and peaceful. Soon the sound of water running over stones lulled us both to sleep. I woke from a dream of home and almost wept to see the dark forest instead of sunlit fields. Guest was still sleeping, so I lay where I was, listening to the running water. Rest while you can, I told myself.

  Gradually I became aware of another sound. At first, I thought it was the wind moving through the trees, but, as I listened, I realized it was a baby’s cry. I got to my feet to hear better. Yes, it was a baby lost in the forest and crying for help.

  “Thomas,” I whispered. “Thomas, is it you?”

  The baby cried louder. Leaving Guest asleep, I crept into the forest. If I woke him, he’d try to stop me, he’d say it was another trick, but I was certain Thomas had escaped somehow from the Kinde Folke and was trying to find his way home.

  When I was far enough away to be sure of not waking Guest, I called softly, “Thomas, where are you? It’s me, Mollie. I’ve come to take you home.”

  The bushes rustled and a baby crawled toward me. His blond curls were tangled and his rosy face was pale and dirty, but it was Thomas, laughing and stretching out his hands to me.

  I lifted him up in my arms and hugged him. “Oh, Thomas, I’ve missed you so.”

  He smiled and cooed and touched my face. “Mollie, Mollie.”

  “You can say my name now,” I whispered. “Oh, Thomas, you remember me.”

  Holding my brother safe in my arms, I told him about the long journey I’d taken to find him. “I’ll bring you to Guest, and then we’ll start for home. Oh, you can’t imagine how happy Mam and Dadoe will be.”

  Joyfully, I carried my brother through the forest, looking for the place where I’d left Guest. Wouldn’t he be surprised when he saw whom I’d found? Why, we could go home without ever meeting the Kinde Folke.

  I didn’t think I’d gone far, but I walked and walked without finding the stream. I passed the same tree twice before I realized I was going in circles. Like everything else in the Dark Lands, the path changed every time I left it, meandering this way and that.

  With every step I took, Thomas grew heavier. But how could I complain? It was my own sweet brother I carried, the baby I’d almost lost through my own foolishness, the baby I’d soon bring home to Mam and Dadoe.

  But I was weak from hunger, tired, and thirsty, and I was stumbling over stones and roots. I feared I’d fall with Thomas in my arms and hurt him. When I saw a mossy spot by a tall oak tree, I sank to the ground.

  “Oh, Thomas,” I whispered. “I’m so weary. Let’s sit and rest for a moment.”

  Holding him on my lap, I sang a lullaby Mam used to sing. He leaned against me, his head heavy on my shoulder.

  “Do you remember this song, Thomas? Mam sang it to you and to me as well. Soon we’ll both be safe at home, and she’ll sing it while she rocks you to sleep in your own cradle.”

  I smiled down at him. He stared at me through half-closed eyes. He didn’t smile. His face was different somehow, not as round as I’d thought, and not as sweet.

  Fearing he was ill, I hugged him and kissed the top of his head. “Are you sick? Does something hurt? Have the Kinde Folke treated you badly? Mam will make everything all right—​she’ll feed you and bathe you and love you.”

  I didn’t expect Thomas to answer my questions, but I was surprised by the low angry sound he made, almost like a growl it was. His body tensed and lost its softness.

  I held him tighter. “Please don’t be angry with me, Thomas. It’s all my fault they took you, and I’m heartily sorry I was so careless. I’ll never let you out of my sight again, I promise.”

  He struggled to escape, and when I tightened my hold on him, he snarled and sunk his teeth into my arm. Shocked, I let him go. His lips drew back and exposed long, sharp teeth. Fur covered his body. What crouched in front of me was a wolf, not Thomas.

  I drew back in horror, but the wolf lunged at me and knocked me to the ground. He stood over me, teeth bared, and growled. I’d seen wolves before but never one like this. From where I lay, he seemed the size of a horse. His teeth were the longest and sharpest I’d ever seen. And his eyes—​they were cruel beyond belief. He meant to kill me, and I was too weak with fear to try to escape.