“Yes,” said Thomas. Then he smiled, eyes suspiciously bright. “I’ve missed them so much.”

  One of the mice finally stepped all the way out of the hole, tail held tightly in its paws, like a child worrying a piece of rope. It looked at Thomas, eyes wide and hopeful, and squeaked, “Is it true? Are you returned unto us, with all your wisdom and your ways?”

  “Not quite yet, but soon,” said Thomas, as Sally stared at the mice in sudden open-mouthed silence. I smirked at her.

  “Sally, meet the mice. Mice, meet Sally. Thomas picked her up in a hell dimension, and I think we’re keeping her. Now will you please go get my clergy?”

  With a squeak, the mouse dove into the hall, and all three heads disappeared.

  “Quietly,” I added, perhaps too late to do any good, and sighed as I turned to Thomas. “This should be fast.”

  “What do you mean by ‘it doesn’t matter which mysteries’?” asked Thomas.

  “My clergy splintered after you disappeared,” I said. “There are two completely different faiths now. I suppose they’ll have to reunify after this. That should be fun to watch.”

  Sally snorted, and apparently dismissing talking mice as only the fifth most impossible thing she’d seen this week, turned to digging through the fridge. I watched, half-amused, and distracted enough by the assortment of things she was pulling out that I almost missed the sound of human-sized footsteps.

  Thomas was rigid beside me. I turned to look at the doorway, where a man of about fifty stood, brown hair sleep-rumpled, glasses askew, staring at all three of us. Sally ignored him, continuing to assemble the most horrifying blueberry waffle sandwich of all time and trusting us to take care of things.

  Kevin stepped into the kitchen, eyes locked on Thomas, ignoring me. Sally glanced up and, seeing that neither of us was reaching for a weapon, kept working. In a very small, somewhat strangled voice, he asked, “Dad?”

  “I’m sorry, Kevin,” said Thomas. “I’m so, so sorry. I would have come back sooner if I’d been able to, I wouldn’t have missed so much, I—”

  Kevin didn’t let him finish, just strode all the way across the kitchen and wrapped his arms around his missing father, pulling him into an embrace that almost made me feel bad about the fact that we’d started our own reunion by kicking the crap out of each other. Almost.

  I turned my attention back to the mousehole, now keeping one eye on the door in case we’d managed to wake anybody else. After a moment had passed, the three mice from before reappeared, accompanied by three more mice, one each in the vestments of the Noisy Priestess, the Pilgrim Priestess, and—

  “Of course,” I said. “I meant no disrespect by failing to call you myself. I just haven’t had much to do with your faith in a very long time . . .”

  “We know the memories of men, even divine men, are flawed,” said the mouse in the vestment of the God of Empty Rooms and Cold Regrets, eyes never leaving Thomas, who was still wrapped in Kevin’s arms. Our son was weeping into his father’s shoulder like his heart was beyond broken. It hurt to see. “But we Remember. We have waited, we have kept the faith, and we Remember.”

  “H—” began the mice.

  They didn’t get any further before Kevin and I snapped, in unison, “Shush.” We exchanged a look, only momentarily united before he turned back to Thomas and finally let his father go.

  “You’re calling for your clergy,” he said. “You’re not staying, are you?”

  “We can’t stay yet,” I said. “Thomas was taking care of a whole bunch of people who’d been kidnapped by the crossroads just like he was, and we have to get them to safety.”

  “But we’ll be back, and we’ll be staying,” said Thomas.

  “Maybe don’t tell Jane,” I said.

  “But feel free to tell James I ate his waffles,” said Sally. She had put peanut butter, sweet pickles, and what looked like leftover chicken curry between the two blueberry waffles and was holding her concoction like it was the last treasure of El Dorado.

  “You are Leaving us again?” asked the priest of Thomas’ order.

  “But we’re taking four mice with us,” I said quickly. “To document what you see and learn what happened in your absence. The mysteries will not be lost—unless you exalt and wake the house. Then we’ll leave without you.”

  “I can’t believe Mom was right,” said Kevin. “I can’t believe you’ve been out there all this time . . .”

  “I can’t wait to get to know you the way I should have known you all your lives,” said Thomas.

  “It’s going to take about a year for us to finish the circuit and get everyone settled,” I said. “We’ll call you from Michigan when we get back. I figure Jane probably doesn’t want us in her backyard.”

  Kevin nodded slowly, hands twitching like he wanted to reach for Thomas again, to hold on tight and never let go. I understood the feeling. Stepping over to the counter, I put my hand down flat on top of it, allowing four of the newly arrived mice—the three in marked attire and one unmarked novice—to run up my arm and cluster on my shoulder. Then I stepped back over to Thomas, taking his hand.

  “If you’re done raiding the fridge, Sally, we can go,” I said, and looked to Kevin. “I love you, buddy. And your dad and I will be back soon. I promise.”

  “I believe you,” he said, and watched as Sally stepped over to join us. I pulled one of the last beads off my necklace, crunching it under my heel on the kitchen floor.

  All at the same time, Sally, Thomas, and I stepped through the thin spot this opened in the walls of the world, and we were safely on our way. The feeling of transition was familiar. The feeling of doing it in the company of people I trusted to keep me in one piece for more than five minutes wasn’t. And the feeling of doing it with Thomas’ hand in mine, well . . .

  That was just about the best thing in all the worlds in all the dimensions there are.

  Read on for a brand-new InCryptid novella by Seanan McGuire:

  AND SWEEP UP THE WOOD . . .

  PART ONE:

  In the Hand of the Forest

  Buckley Township, Michigan, 1960

  1.

  * * *

  Montmorency County, Michigan, is a big place with a small population, and that’s the way the people who live there like it. Sprawling, untouched forests exist side by side with the spreading forms of towns grown out of villages and swelling toward cityhood with every breath and birth that passes. Lakes sleep in the shadow of the trees, dreaming their deep, slow dreams, their stony bottoms littered with the bones of careless swimmers. Infant catfish build their homes in abandoned rib cages, play games of hide-and-seek through the narrow domes of human skulls. This, too, will pass, as the cities spread; these lakes will be taught and tamed, transformed into safe swimming holes and seen through the golden lenses of nostalgia. But that is a long way into the future, and there is time enough between here and there. The future is another country.

  The shape of the great Montmorency Swamp is like a handprint laid flat across the land, its hidden depths filled with dangers. Quicksand and sinkholes, venomous snakes—and other, stranger threats, the sort of threats mentioned in children’s stories and whispered around campfires. They say the woods are full of monsters, and they laugh because no one believes in monsters anymore. This is the summer of 1960, and the world is too enlightened for that sort of thing. Most of the world, anyway. In some small, dark corners, people still believe the evidence of their eyes, and in those places—places like Buckley Township, pinned like a butterfly under glass between the swamp and the dark, foreboding shadows of the Galway Woods—the population has never grown beyond a certain number. More of the young folk choose to go than choose to stay with every generation. It is a town that may die in the larval stage before it grows into a city—and some folks, those who’ve lived there all their lives and could no more leave than they could grow wings and fly away—some folks say that’s for the best.

  Some folks say it’s time to leave the dead to rest.

  Buckley Township: founded 1822 by Robert Buckley of Buckley Lumber. Despite the wealth of the woods surrounding the settlement, the company never flourished, and collapsed by 1878. The township was left to fend for itself. Surprisingly enough, it lived—possibly because it was too damn stubborn to die. People put down roots, becoming as much a part of the land as the trees and lakes and swamp around them, and began, in their own quiet way, to grow.

  Strangers came on occasion, adding their strength and seed to the town. Alexander and Enid Healy, in ’05; Frances Brown, in ’28; Thomas Price, in ’54. They came, they stayed, and if they were the ones who walked into the woods and didn’t come back out again, well, it seemed a small price for the town’s survival. More, it meant that just this once, it wasn’t one of their own who paid. The blood of strangers fed the trees as well as the blood of the people who’d been born there. So the residents of Buckley told themselves, and so it was, for at least a little longer, in the hand of the forest, in the shadow of the ever-watching trees.

  2.

  * * *

  Jonathan Healy died screaming.

  The echoes hadn’t even faded, and Alice already knew she’d be hearing that sound for the rest of her life. It would be waiting for her every time she closed her eyes and tried to sleep. There were things she could forget, things she could block out of her mind or move past. Hearing her father’s dying screams as he was ripped apart from the inside by monstrous, impossible wasps wasn’t one of those things.

  The buzzing of the Apraxis filled the night as they turned their attention from the fallen to the still-standing. Alice forced her numb fingers to keep moving, fumbling bullets into the chambers of her mother’s revolvers. She’d already been stung, and the blood running down her arm threatened to make her hands too slippery to hold onto the gunstocks. If she dropped her weapons, it would all be over for her, just like it was already over for her father . . .

  And then the wasps were diving, and there was no more time for hesitation. Gunfire overwhelmed the sound of wings, and the distant, dying echo of her father’s screams.

  3.

  * * *

  When Buckley Township was founded, the surrounding forest was viewed as a blessing; a seemingly-infinite natural resource to be exploited for the sake of wealth and prosperity. As the logging companies tried and failed to find a foothold in the Galway Woods, that attitude changed, replaced by one of quiet suspicion. Too many men went into those trees and didn’t come out again. Too many children came home wild-eyed and shaking, telling tales of monsters in the wood.

  After more than a hundred years in the hand of the forest, the people of Buckley knew perfectly well that there were monsters in the Galway. They just didn’t talk about it. They knew, also, that some of the newer residents of the township had an unpleasant tendency to go wandering into the Galway, looking for the monsters. They didn’t talk about that, either, and when the ones who went into the wood didn’t come out again, well, that was only natural.

  Alice Healy, on the other hand, had been in love with the Galway Woods since she was a child, and the Woods, fickle thing that they were, had been in love with her for almost as long. How a forest could love a human woman was less than clear, but everyone who saw Alice in her element knew that it was so. She hadn’t gone into the Galway that night looking for trouble. It was supposed to be a standard hunting trip, a way to blow off a little steam and make sure things were staying quiet. It should have been safe—as safe as any trip into the Galway Woods could be, since living in an area with a large cryptid population gave “safe” a looser definition than applied anywhere else. Especially when you regularly went out looking for trouble with nothing to protect you but a few battered old hand-me-down charms, a vial of aconite perfume, and a whole lot of bullets.

  As far as Alice was concerned, “safe” and “careful” were the kind of words you used when you wanted to get rid of somebody. “Be careful” wasn’t just an insult; it was an insult bordering on a death sentence. If you polled the town for the last words of all the people who’d walked into the woods and never walked back out again, she was firmly convinced that “I’ll be careful” and “I’ll be right back” would be tied for first place.

  It had been a long day. Between work at the children’s library and dealing with the fools and busybodies who seemed to dominate the town, Alice had been at the end of her patience and not being careful when she’d decided to go out and walk the woods. That’s why her father had caught her on the way down the stairs, having swapped her work clothes for jeans, a shapeless flannel shirt, and a hunting vest. She had her blonde curls pulled back in a no-nonsense ponytail, and a rifle slung over one shoulder, as well as her mother’s revolvers at her hips.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he’d asked.

  Alice had come to an immediate stop, cheeks burning. Even though she was a grown woman and would have been a college graduate if life and the woods hadn’t interfered, her father still had a gift for making her feel like she was thirteen years old. “Out?” she’d ventured.

  Jonathan had shaken his head. “Not an acceptable answer, Alice. Try again.”

  “I just—I was—I mean—” She’d stopped, sighing. “The woods, Daddy. I was going to the woods.”

  “The woods,” he’d echoed. His frown said all the things he didn’t say aloud.

  Jonathan couldn’t forbid her to go into the Galway alone, and he had long since stopped trying. She was an adult, and she could do as she pleased; more than that, she could take perfectly good care of herself. She didn’t have her mother’s raw talent with guns, or her grandmother’s skill as a marksman, but she had a generous measure of the strange luck she’d inherited from her mother to bolster her training.

  Alice had run into more than her share of trouble during a lifetime of moving through those woods, and while she’d been seriously injured a few times as a teenager, she hadn’t died yet. That alone was enough to testify as to her skill, both at surviving and at finding allies . . . but that was just technicalities, and they both knew it. Jonathan didn’t want her in the woods, or near the cryptids, or having anything to do with the family business. Alice didn’t want to listen when he told her “no,” so she never asked him, and he was never forced to directly forbid her.

  Alice had hastened to fill the silence that was swelling between them. “Four kids have brought me pictures of the same thing in the last two days. Some sort of giant wasp they say they saw down by Miller’s Pond.”

  His frown had deepened. “That’s where Jenny Sampson disappeared.”

  Alice had nodded. “It’s also less than a quarter-mile from where the Billingsly twins went missing. I looked up the description in the field guides, Daddy. There’s about three things it could be, and they’re all nesters. I just want to get the lay of the land and see if I can find any clear trace of what’s maybe out there, feeding on the kids.”

  She hadn’t exactly done her research, but she’d read the short descriptions of the possible cryptids, and she was confident of her ability to figure out the rest out in the field. But she wasn’t going to tell him that. He could think she’d done all her homework before heading into the final exam.

  “What are the options?” he’d asked. He’d still been frowning, but distantly now; he’d been thinking, weighing the danger to the town against his desire to keep her safely home.

  “Well, it could be a nest of Melnorns. They’re clumsy and slow, but they eat a lot, and they like young prey. Plus they’ve made incursions into this part of the country before. Might also be Laicaln bees, which would be bad, since they’re pretty clever, but would probably be self-correcting. They can only sting once before they die, they don’t breed quickly, and they’d never survive the winter.”

  “What’s the third option?”

  Alice had managed not to wince. She’d been hoping he wouldn’t ask. “Apraxis wasps. But it’s not likely, Daddy. It would have to be a very juvenile hive, and—”

  Jonathan had raised his hand to cut her off, expression growing cold. “Unlikely or not, there’s still a chance. You were just going to go charging out there alone?”

  “I was only going to scout,” Alice had said indignantly. “I’m not stupid.”

  “Foolhardy, impetuous, overconfident, but not stupid,” Jonathan had allowed. “You’re not going into the woods alone.”

  “But Daddy—”

  “I said you weren’t going alone. Wait here while I get my coat.”

  4.

  * * *

  They reached Miller’s Pond two hours later, both of them on edge and on their guard. There had been no conversation as they walked through the wood, and Alice had been unable to relax in the disapproving presence of her father. Having him there made a late-night cryptid hunt into less of an adventure and more of a punishment.

  Her resentment dropped away as the pond came into view, forgotten in the face of her curiosity. There were dozens of tiny pockmarks scored into the soft mud near the water. It looked like someone had pressed the edge of a butter knife into the ground over and over again, making a haphazard pattern of lines.

  Later, Alice would ask herself if she should have realized what those pockmarks meant; if she should have somehow understood from what little had been recorded in the field guides that Melnorn get all the water they need from the bodies of their victims, and Laicaln bees prefer to drink from stagnant pools, while Miller’s Pond was fresh water, clear and open. If she’d read more carefully, would she have known what was waiting for them? Could they have turned back before it was too late?