So, this is what I guess—and it’s only a guess, mind. Davy Spicer crawled away, dug himself a shallow grave, and set himself the long wait of getting better again. Or he crept down into the dark hollows underground, down where water is. Maybe the horse found him and he made a bargain with it. He’d already been dying, and his kind like to have contingencies. That’s why he wanted the bottle. He thought he could save himself with it. Take the bone horse’s soul like medicine, and rattle on forever, the way it has.

Then we were quiet for a time, until one day a few fools started waving things around again: hearts and birds and lemon trees and a bottle with the dregs of the bone horse’s soul. Under the earth, what was left of Davy Spicer dragged itself through caverns. Its bones were mended with wheel spokes and cattle ribs and rusted iron. Broken glass lodged shining in its skull. It crawled back up to where all that commotion was being made. Scott children setting off the ghosts of birds like smoke signals. Started making deals again.

But I suppose he wasn’t counting on a policeman’s daughter with a shotgun and a grudge.

As for the bone horse … I never heard a word against it. It was a marvel in its own way. Leave it be. Let things work themselves out. Lock the bottle and what’s left in it away, or bury it, or break it. Damsons haven’t stayed in Inglewell this long by getting involved.

But you don’t like that, do you?

Well, there’s something else you might do. Don’t tell your mother. But you might give the bottle to that girl. Not the Scott creature. Aberdeen’s daughter.

The bone horse isn’t the only mystery around Inglewell. Old Pinnicke stopped by, swearing he almost caught that striped beast he’s been hunting. Shot off a paw and picked up a woman’s hand, ring and all. He’ll get the rest of it soon, if he isn’t stopped. I don’t know if there’s much left of the woman, after all these years. But there might be some virtue left in that bottle, to set things right, or at least to change them. And yes, little Miss Aberdeen will care, I think.

ALL THAT SHALL BE

Nothing is as it was.

How in-woven and eternal the district of Inglewell seemed, with its secrets and legends and hatreds.