As the night fell, however, she felt a nest of nerves coiling around her heart. That evening at dinner, a spoon had fallen, a sign that meant company was coming, something Rebecca most assuredly didn’t want. She had been a selfish girl, but she was a cunning woman and she knew that everything came in threes, including death. She took a bowl and filled it with water and ink, and there she saw Hannah, nailed to her door, and Thomas in his bed, suffering from poison. Rebecca feared that she, herself, might be the third one to be afflicted. She was waiting for death to come through the door, perhaps her husband’s sisters would send their own husbands and sons to come here and fill Rebecca’s boots with stones before wrapping her in chains and throwing her into the river where the weeds grew tall as a man and the rushing current led to the sea.

The knock on the door was light, however, not death’s hand, but the tapping of a bird’s beak. It was the crow, the robber who had been here many times before. Women who are unlucky in love must throw their silver out the front door if they want to improve their fortunes, and Rebecca had often done so. There was a field of silver, tarnished from the witch’s touch, and the meadow appeared glazed with light when the moon rose. It was a perfect treasure trove for a curious crow.

“Leave here!” Rebecca demanded, for she recognized the creature that had been cheeky enough to take the comb from her hair. If she wasn’t mistaken, he still had a scar on his head from one of the rocks she’d thrown to chase him off.

Cadin knew what this woman was capable of, and he flew away, his wings obscuring the rising moon. Rebecca stepped over the threshold, one hand over her eye so that she could see him well enough to spell him and be rid of him once and for all. But then she spied Maria and all else fell away. There was the baby she’d left in Devotion Field, now a dark fury of a girl in sopping clothes, her black hair in knots.