The farmwife came back downstairs about the time her son Tad came in from the barn, and after a moment’s thought she sent the boy and Dag off together to clean up broken glass and rubble around the house. She surveyed her kitchen and climbed down into her storage cellar, from which she emerged with a few jars for supper, seeming much reassured. After setting the jars in a row on the table—Fawn could almost see her counting stomachs and planning the upcoming meal in her head—she turned back and frowned down at Fawn.

“We’ll have to get you into a proper bed. Birdy’s room, I think, once Tad gets the glass out. It wasn’t too bad, otherwise.” And then, after a pause, in a much lower voice, “That patroller fellow tell the straight story on you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Fawn.

The woman’s face pinched in suspicion. “’Cause he didn’t get those scratches on his face from no mud-man, I’ll warrant.”

Fawn looked back blankly, then said, “Oh! Those scratches. I mean, yes, that was me, but it was an accident. I mistook him for another bandit, at first. We got that one straightened out right quick.”

“Lakewalkers is strange folk. Black magicians, they say.”

Fawn struggled up on one elbow to say hotly, “You should be grateful if they are. Because blight bogles are blacker ones. I saw one, yesterday. Closer than you are to me now. Anything patrollers have to do to put them down is all right by me!”

Petti’s thoughts seemed to darken. “Was that what—did the blight bogle…blight you?”

“Make me miscarry?”

“Aye. Because girls don’t usually miscarry just from being knocked around, or falling down stairs, or the like. Though I’ve seen some try for it. They just end up being bruised mothers, usually.”

“Yes,” said Fawn shortly, scrunching back down. “It was the bogle.” Were these too-close questions? Not yet, she decided. Even Dag had offered some explanations, just enough to satisfy without begging more questions. “It was ugly. Uglier than the mud-men, even. Bogles kill everything they touch, seemingly. You should go look at its lair, later. The woods are all dead for a mile around. I don’t know how long it will take for them to grow back.”