She smiled. “You know this. I’ve told you before. Anyway, I was worried that it wasn’t going to happen, that it didn’t matter what I wanted. I was small and not very good at anything. I told her this. I said I didn’t think I would ever be like her, not even a little bit. This is what she told me. She told me that we don’t know who we’re going to be or what we’re going to do when we’re still children. She told me we don’t find that out until after we’ve grown up. So you can’t ever know what’s supposed to happen until you get there.”

She squeezed Candle’s thin shoulders. “My mother was right. I had to be a lot older before I found out that maybe I would be like her.”

“You are like her,” Candle said quietly. “You are brave and strong. You killed that centipede.”

“That’s right. But I couldn’t have done that even a year ago. I couldn’t have fought like that, like my mother. But look at you, Candle. You already know you have a special gift. And even if it isn’t working right now, that doesn’t mean it won’t work sometime later. Maybe it’s resting. Maybe you are trying too hard. But even if it never comes back, even if it’s gone forever, your family will still love you. The Ghosts will always love you and want you to be with them.”

“Are you sure?” The little girl looked doubtful.

“They don’t love you and want you in the family because of your gift, Candle. They love you for who you are inside.”

She leaned over and kissed Candle’s forehead and cheek, smoothed the thick red hair. She could barely keep the tears from her eyes. “We would never not want you in the family,” she whispered.

“Okay,” the little girl replied, her voice so small it was barely audible.

“Your family needs you, Candle. We always will.”

She gave Candle a reassuring smile, but the little girl didn’t smile back. SOME DISTANCE AWAY FROM THE OTHERS, concealed by the night’s darkness, Hawk was talking quietly with Tessa. They were crouched within the shadow of a grove of withered ash, their heads bent close so that they could see each other’s faces clearly in the starlight, their hands clasped together. It was their time alone, something they knew would be a rarity in the days ahead.

“It’s nice when it’s like this,” he told her, giving her hands a squeeze. “Just you and me. Just the dark and the silence.”