“Assassin!” cried a whurl gazing down at Charn from one branch of the blasted tree. “Save yourselves! A Son of Cain is here to kill you all!”

Charn rolled and swung the barrel up. His sights found the whurl, and he pulled the trigger, and the gun made a flat, tinny click. For a moment he just stared at the old Remington in a kind of blank bewilderment. It was loaded—he had put in a fresh cartridge himself only a few minutes before. A misfire? He didn’t believe it. He cleaned and oiled the gun once a month, whether he used it or not.

He was still trying to come to grips with that awful, dead click when the loop of rope fell. It caught him around the face, and Charn sat up, and as he did, it dropped around his neck and tightened. The lasso yanked. The rope choked off his air, and it jerked him back, over the rotten log and over the edge. He spun as he fell. He hit the earth with enough force to drive all the air out of him. Ribs broke. Pain screamed in his shattered ankle. A thousand black specks wheeled around him, like midges, only they were in his head.

He sprawled on the ground, ten feet from his little door. As his vision cleared, it seemed the sky was lighter, almost lemon-colored. He could see fair clouds in the distance.

His right hand fumbled for the rifle, but just as his shaking fingers scraped the butt, whoever held the other end dragged him away. Charn choked, tried to force his fingers under the rope and couldn’t. He rolled and kicked as he was dragged and wound up on his belly, beneath the single corrupted, dead tree that leaned out over the whole natural amphitheater.

“Rifle wouldn’t do you any good anyway,” Fallows said from above him. Charn stared at his black hooves. “I took the firing pin out last night, while you were upstairs with Christian.”

The tension on the line slackened, and Charn was able to loosen the noose a few centimeters and capture a breath. He stared up at Fallows. His skull was shaved clean to show the stumps of two horns, long since sawed off, and he was backlit by a sky the reddish gold of new-minted copper.

A little girl stood beside Fallows, holding his hand. She looked gravely down at Charn—the stern, cool, appraising look of a queen.

“It’s come for you, Mr. Charn,” the little girl said. “It’s found you out at last.”

“What?” Charn asked. “What’s come?”

He was confused and frightened and desperately wanted to know.

Fallows cast one end of the rope over a bough of the overhanging tree.

“Daylight,” the girl said, and with that, Fallows hoisted Charn kicking into the air.

Late Returns

WHEN MY PARENTS WENT, they went together.