“He talked to me about it first,” Aiden said. “But I didn’t believe him. Underhill was just where we were—like Caledonia or Ulster, right? Willy could make up things, too—he was the best storyteller. I thought he was making up a story right up until he died and proved himself right.”

For all that he’d said it was a long time ago, Aiden’s breath was shaky. “Underhill can’t kill, not directly. But if she wants you dead, you die. Sometimes quickly but usually slower. She can’t feel pain, so it fascinates her.”

A cold wind blew down my neck just then. “Aiden,” I said, “we’re on a path again.”

We walked—and now Aiden wasn’t the only one who could feel something following us. I felt as though if I turned around, I would see someone. When I did, there was no one there—except the ghosts.

Underhill was a haunted land. Most ghosts I’ve been around—and I’ve been around a lot of them—haunt places where people might be found. Churches, homes, stores—places like that. The ghosts that I’d been seeing were tucked into hollows under trees and hiding under branches. All of them were children. One of them had been following us since Aiden had started talking about the children he used to run around with. I wish I could believe that it was the ghost who was watching us—but his regard felt desperate, as if he thought we might be able to save him.

The watcher who made my shoulders itch, that one was not desperate, just . . . predatory.

But the ghost was worrisome, too.

“I think it might be smarter not to talk about dead friends while we are here,” I told Aiden. “Can you tell how much farther?”

“Not far,” he said. “But I thought that was Underhill watching us, and it wasn’t. I think we should move faster.”

He broke into a jog that I kept up with easily—one thing I do very well is run. I could have maintained that pace for hours. Knowing that Adam was behind us was the only thing that kept me from looking.

Normally, running is the last thing I would do when I thought we were being pursued. But Aiden had survived this place for a very long time, and he was, as Jesse said, our guide.

We topped the rise and found ourselves on a flat, broad plain with waist-high grass. The wind whipped through the grass and sent the few stray hairs that had escaped my braiding this morning straight into my eyes. A huge old tree stood in the middle of the plain, and about thirty feet up the thick trunk, there was a tree house perched where the trunk split into three.

“Run,” shouted Aiden, heading for the tree at full speed.