“Oh yes, anything at all. Even that ugly ol’ soul you’ve got behind those tiny little-girl ribs. That old devil, he’s something else. He thinks if he hides Avery someplace sweet and pretty, that I might think I’ve made a mistake. He wants me to think you’re just a precious innocent. But I know better. I know who you are. I know they brought you back, Avery. I know you’ll keep coming back until I find that book, but I’m sworn to do what I can.”

He took another muddy step and I found my voice when he said that bit about the book. “What are you talking about?”

He laughed. “Your baby-doll voice won’t fool me. You’ve heard the three sisters too—I know you have. I’ve heard about it. You can’t escape them, Avery. They’re God’s own furies, chasing you down. They’ve led me to you.”

“Nuh-uh,” I argued. “They warned me about you. They said you were coming to get me.”

“Then . . . then it’s because they’re a portent of your death. They wish to witness your destruction.”

“You’re crazy.” I said it deadpan, with a creeping hint of ice. “You’re some crazy stranger, and I’m not supposed to talk to strangers. You go away before my friends get here.”

No, my baby. I heard her, but I couldn’t see her.

No, my baby. Don’t you bother talking. He’s as mad as the moon, and you’ll only make him angry. You’ve got to run. You’ve got to start now. You have to outrun him.

One of his hands slid free of his side and in it I saw the black glint of metal. He’d been hiding a handgun, shiny and damp and heavy enough to make his wrist droop. Before he could lift it enough to aim, I finally followed the ghost’s advice. I turned and dashed, parting the slender trees with my flailing arms.

Bang.

The first bullet blasted out of the barrel and split a tree trunk to my right.

Water dumped down from the shaken leaves to drench me, but it did not slow me. He was on my heels, but he was not so quick as I was. I knew my way through the ravines that crisscrossed the woods and scarred the hills. This was my world, and I was the wisest scout of all. Even my own friends—kids who knew the wooded gullies as well as I did—couldn’t keep up when I started running.

Bang.

Another shot, even farther off base than the first.

Even in my breathless, choking fear I found myself calculating, aiming my flight through the densest clots of trees and down the sharpest, rockiest cuts of earth. I leaped across rain-flushed streams in one fast skip.