Except for the woman with the brown eyes who sat to the very edge of the group and toward the craggy rocks. She stood in one fluid motion then and stepped forward, again and again, one more step, just one more, until the other women were calling for her, and some of the men were screaming in a language she didn’t know nor would ever learn. But none of them ran after her, none of them stopped as she stood at the top of the wind-battered cliff and calmly unlaced her boots. They were pretty, made of doeskin, and the beadwork was impeccable. Nothing I could recognize, but then again, who knew how far back in history this was?

She stood straight with the self-assurance of a lady who knew exactly what she was doing and had already steeled herself for it a long time ago. Clarity swept over her pained features as she stared over the water below, watching it crash against the rocks, and the white foam swirled into faces that called her down.

She stepped out of her boots, wincing at the pain in her sore, aching feet, and stood on the cliff face a moment longer, head raised to take in one last breath of salty, ocean-borne wind before she calmly stepped off the cliff and to her death.

We locked eyes again, the spirit and I, and suddenly I knew. Not sure how, not sure why, but I knew that she was no monster or creature or thing attacking Soren for the sake of it. Not for the revel of the kill or the glory of the hunt or even for hunger. She was a mother reaching for a boy whose skin had turned blue-gray in death, whose lips became the color of frost, whose blond hair was so fine that if he’d actually been a goblin, it could’ve been white as snow.

She was reaching for what she thought was her son.

Underwater, I could shed no tears, but I didn’t let go of my grip on her even as she fought and called out under the water to what she thought was hers. Instead, I reached out with my mind to that one shimmering place that always evaded me, and I called to it, and for the first time, a call came back.