more cold, subsumed in fluid, life swarming and seeding and ending around it, life as small as a piece of nothing or large as the mind of its god, and all of it shocked at the shade’s brief arrival;

something more solid, rich in the history of life though holding little, only sleeping things, even older than its god and so much more unknowable.

The shade withdrew with something akin to fear. It was its first true emotion, and it was quite apt.

Time passed, though the shade did not know time. The places it skirted became warmer, the oceans more full of life, the sky lighter and more loaded with living things. Nothing saw it—there was nothing to sense—but the mood of wrongness at its passing sent a pod of blade whales on course for a distant beach, a giant hawk into sea-bound freefall, and the crew of a fishing boat into a murderous madness.

It moved on, listening for more whispers to carry back to its god.

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

HOPE’S TATTOOS SEEMED to reflect her mood. They emphasized the set of her face and now, as she spoke sadly of what was past, they drew down the corners of her mouth, painted themselves as deep creases around her eyes. They made her look very old.

The boy had not yet given her a satisfactory answer. Hers was the only one that made any sort of sense, crazy and terrifying though it may be. There were other ways she could check, but she was too terrified. If she looked and saw and it was true . . . then everything was ending. Ending, and beginning again.

This was the moment she had been living for.

“BUT I’M ONLY a farm boy,” Rafe said yet again, as if his insistence would make it so.

Hope shook her head in frustration, her spiked hair snapping at the air. “You’re impossible, that’s what you are!” She stood and went to pour them both some more water. Rafe was not sure quite what she meant.

He wanted to curl up and sleep. He may be in this strange place with this strange woman, but he was exhausted, physically and mentally, and sleep lured him as a welcome retreat. He might dream of his parents, but then he might not. And he hoped that if he did dream, then for a while they would still be alive. A million good memories awaited him in sleep.

“How do you explain what you’re hearing?” Hope asked yet again.

“I don’t know what I’m hearing! Just . . . things. Whispers. Words I don’t know. Other things.”

“What other things?” She gave him a glass of water. She’d asked him already, but she looked determined.