I walked through town, holding the book of nightmares on my hip like it was a child, smiling and waving to the people I passed. All who I knew well, by name and by dream alike. I hurried when I reached the market, the heart of Hereswith, where both gossip and activity thrived. I didn’t have time to be ensnared by either one, and I followed the eastern road to the lower edge of town, where the cottages became more distant from each other, melting into verdant patches of farms marked by low stone walls.

I smelled the Fieldings’ sheep before I reached their gate. A black-and-white collie barked as I approached the front door, which sat ajar. I hesitated on the stoop; I could hear a faint argument, just within the cottage. . . .

“We can’t afford it, Jane. Our daughters need bread more than they need dreamless sleep.”

“Look at her, Spruce. Will you do nothing? She won’t even speak!”

“The girls have brought this on themselves. I’ve said this time and time again, and those cards need to be—”

“Those were my grandfather’s cards!”

Spruce sighed. “I’ve summoned the magician. If you won’t see the cards burned . . . what more do you want me to do, woman?”

I didn’t like Spruce Fielding’s tone. I knocked on the door, and it creaked open farther, exposing the central room of the cottage. Jane Fielding, a woman whose blond hair was lank and streaked with gray, sat on a threadbare couch with a bundle of blankets—which was probably her youngest daughter—cradled on her lap. Spruce, a ruddy-faced man with a thick brown beard who was so tall he had to stoop to avoid banging his head on the timber beams, was pacing until he saw me.

“Miss Clem!” he said, surprised as he moved to greet me. “Thank you for coming. We were expecting—”

“My father,” I concluded. “Yes, I know. But he’s in bed fighting a fever. I’ve come in his stead.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Spruce said, removing his cap to twist it in his hands.

“Sorry that I’m here, or that my father is ill?” I jested, hoping to lighten the mood as well as the dread the Fieldings were expressing upon the realization that I, and not my esteemed father, had come to divine the nightmare.

Spruce was speechless. Sometimes the men of Hereswith didn’t know how to take my wit. I stepped into the room, my eyes adjusting to the dim interior light.