Hattie dropped the ax, felt it slip out of her fingers and land softly on the peat below.

Candace and Hattie had played together as children. They were neighbors and friends. They’d made dolls from twigs, bark, and wildflowers: stick-figure bodies and bright daisies for heads. They’d played in this very bog, climbed the trees at the edge of it, had parties with bullfrogs and salamanders, sung songs about their own bright futures.

And Jane had played with Candace’s daughter, Lucy, for a time. Then that had ended, as well it should have. Some things are for the best.

“In God’s name, you better tell me the truth, Hattie Breckenridge,” Candace called to her. “Where is Jane?”

Hattie followed the barrel of the rifle to Candace’s eyes and looked right at her. “Gone,” Hattie said. “I sent her away last night. She’s miles and miles from town now.”

Others were moving in on her, forming a tight circle around the edge of the bog and stepping closer, feet sinking and squishing, good dress shoes being ruined.

“If she were here, I would kill her,” Candace said.

The words twisted into Hattie’s chest, drove out the breath there.

“I would kill her right in front of you,” Candace snarled. “Take your daughter away from you as you took mine from me.”

“I did no such thing,” Hattie said.

“Lucy was in the schoolhouse!” Candace wailed, her body swaying, being pushed down by the weight of the words she spoke. “They just pulled her body out not an hour ago!” Her voice cracked. “Her and Ben and Lawrence. All dead!” She began to sob.

A part of Hattie, the little-girl part who looked over and saw her once-upon-a-time best friend in such pain, longed to go to her, to put her arms around her, to sing a soothing song, weave flowers into her hair, bathe her in the healing waters of the bog.

“Candace, I am truly sorry for this tragedy and for your pain, but it was not my doing. I told you—I told everyone in town—that I foresaw this disaster. That the schoolhouse would burn. That lives would be lost. But no one would listen. I only see glimpses of what will happen. I can’t control it. Can’t stop it.”

She never got used to it—the shock of something she’d seen in a vision actually happening; a tragedy unfolding that she had no way to stop.

“I need you to stop speaking,” Candace said, gripping the gun so tightly her hands turned white. “Stop speaking and put your hands up above your head.”

Gun trained on her, Hattie did as she was told.

Men came from behind, bound her wrists with rope.

“Bring her to the tree,” Candace said.

What should I do? Hattie asked the voices, the trees, the bog itself. How will you help me out of this?