Did the Hag know that a summons would come for her this morning? Croi milks the cow, battles the hens for eggs, and packs a bag, all without choosing to. Her newly awakened bones demand, and her brain insists on answering.

Her packed bag contains stolen bread, a flask of water, gaudy scarves she took from a merchant in the human city, and a spare dress made of green bark. She packs the book detailing the peoples of the Otherworld and leaves the one she can’t read, the one titled The Talamh Crown, behind.

The bag is slung over her shoulder, and she is poised to walk away when she grits her teeth and digs her feet into the earthen floor. Croi has spent a lot of her hours in this dwelling, sunk many minutes into the ground here. Surely she has forged a bond to this land that should anchor her until the Hag returns. She pulls herself to the middle of the dwelling, her body fighting against the direction she’s moving in. The flower sprites hold on to her with their slight bodies, trying to keep her stationary. Time passes, and the urge to leave becomes so intense that she is standing and walking to the entrance without realizing it. At the last moment, her arms go around the trunk of one of the trees that form a pillar of her dwelling. She holds on tight and exerts all her will over a body that seems determined to betray her.

It is then that she feels the Hag’s presence. The guardian feels like the lack of pain, like deliverance from this compulsion to move. She feels like safety.

She emerges from the trees like an answer to Croi’s unspoken prayers. Her steps are unhurried; she moves with the grace unique to her. She flows up the path, through the garden, and comes to stop in front of the not-brownie.

Croi looks up at her and feels hot tears slip down her cheeks. Despite their prickly relationship, the Hag is her only family.

“You’re still here,” the Hag says, her face expressionless as always. “I expected you to have already left.”

“What?” Her words shock Croi still, until pain lances through her. This pain has nothing to do with her bones and everything to do with her heart. “You knew…?” she whispers, then laughs. Of course she did. Her words yesterday prove as much. Croi takes a shaky breath. “What’s happening to me?”

“I left you the books for a reason, Croi.” The Hag’s eyes are infinitely old, and in this moment of half-truths and impending abandonment, Croi can feel her guardian’s age in her bones.

“Someone Glamoured me?” she croaks. “You?”

“No. This is not my work,” the Hag says.

“Then who?” Croi demands.

The Hag doesn’t reply.

“The person who placed a summoning spell on me?” she tries again, but it’s no use.

The urge to walk away becomes more intense, and she gets more desperate.

“I really am not a brownie?” She begs for an answer. “You said I was! We cannot lie!”