She walked through the hilly woods that marked the beginning of the eastern end of the park, alone now with Pick, wrapped in the silence of the big hardwoods. The trees rose bare-limbed and skeletal against the autumn sky, stripped of their leaves, waiting for winter’s approach. Their colors not yet completely faded, the fallen leaves formed a thick carpet on the ground, still damp and soft with morning dew. She peered ahead into the tangled clutter of limbs and scrub and shadow. The forest had a bristling, hostile appearance. Everything looked as if it were wrapped in barbed wire.

Her long strides covered the ground rapidly as she descended to the creek that wound out of the woods and emptied into the bayou. How much bigger the park had seemed when she was a child growing up in it. Sometimes her home felt the same way—too small for her now. She supposed it was true of her child’s world entirely, that she had outgrown it, that she needed more room.

“How much farther?” she asked as she crossed the wooden bridge that spanned the creek bed, and started up the slope toward the deep woods.

“Bear right,” he grunted.

She angled toward the bayou, following the tree line. She glanced involuntarily toward the deep woods, just as she always did, any time she came here, remembering what had taken place there five years earlier. Sometimes she could see it all quite clearly, could see her father and John Ross and the maentwrog. Sometimes she could even see Wraith.

“Has there been any sign of him?” she asked suddenly, the words escaping from her mouth before she could think better of them.

Pick understood what she was talking about. “Nothing. Not since …”

Not since she turned eighteen two summers ago, she finished as he trailed off. That was the last time either of them had seen Wraith. After so many years of having him around, it seemed impossible that he could be gone. Her father had created the giant ghost wolf out of his dark magic to serve as a protector for the daughter he intended one day to return for. Wraith was to keep her safe while she grew. All the time she had worked with Pick to keep the magic in balance and the feeders from luring children into the park, Wraith had warded her. But Gran had discerned Wraith’s true purpose and altered his makeup with her own magic in such a way that when her father returned to claim her, Wraith destroyed him.

She could see it happening all over again through the dark huddle of the trees. Night cloaked the deep woods, and on the slopes of the park, over by the toboggan slide, Fourth of July fireworks were exploding in a shower of bright colors and deep booms. The white oak that had imprisoned the maentwrog was in shreds, and the maentwrog itself was turned to ash. John Ross lay motionless upon the charred earth, damaged and exhausted. Nest faced her father, who approached with hand outstretched and soothing, persuasive words. You belong to me. You are my blood. You are my life.