“I dropped to my knees and I thanked them. But then the world went black. I think they hit me on the head. The next thing I knew was that we were rattling along the road in my father’s van. It still smelled of his tobacco. They drove me through the night. By morning we had reached a town. ‘You are insane,’ they said. ‘Tell your tales to the cobbles and the mud. We good men have no time for them.’ And then they left me there, on the streets of that strange town. No money, no friends. I did not even speak the language, only the old tongue.”

“Why did they do that?” I wanted to hurt them. “That wasn’t fair!”

“Fair!” she smiled. “I had broken the silence of Locronan. I understood their actions.”

“What happened to you?” I asked. “What did you eat and where did you sleep?”

“I used what I had,” she said. “My face, my health, my mind, my will. I had some talent with helping the sick, and a neat stitch. So I did not fare as badly as I might have done. But anyone may kick a stray dog in the street, and that is what I was, until your father came through the town. I would be in that place still, but for him. He brought me here.

“I felt the ankou follow me across the ocean, across the land, to this far coast. Once he has seen you he will not let you go. We know these things in Locronan. This so-called new world has forgotten them. On the day he comes to me with open arms, wearing my face, I will be ready.”

I wasn’t upset by what she was saying, because it was clear to me that Mommy could never die. My fears were for myself. I looked at the disturbed earth, under which there lay the little god that had once been Snowball. “What is going to happen to me?” I whispered.

“One day, maybe soon, or maybe when you are a big man, you will want to do that again. You may resist but in the end you will give in to the wanting, over and over. And in time you will hunger for sport bigger than a mouse. Perhaps it will be dogs, and then cattle, and then people. That is how it goes—I have seen it. However it progresses, it will become all that you are, and you will grow careless. That will be your undoing. One day, after you have gone far, far beyond the reach of reason, they will get you. The police, the courts, the prisons. You are not clever enough to avoid them. They will find out your nature, and they will hurt you and lock you up. I know that you could not survive it. Therefore, you must take care. You must never, ever let them see who you really are.”