Miss Arabella followed us to our skiff. We untied it and hopped inside. Already rainwater was filling it up at the bottom, and I got busy bailing with my hands. Tally looked up at Miss Arabella, standing there on the dock.

“So can you help me?” said Tally. “Please.”

“I’m sorry, honey,” she said. “There isn’t any time. It would take me many days to prepare a cure, and I fear there aren’t many days left for me if I linger here any longer.”

“But where are you going?” said Tally.

Miss Arabella’s face was long and worn and thin, grief stretching her skin so tight it could have been a mask.

“Far, far away, to the deep north forests. I’ll be safe there. Goodbye, children. Follow the narrow path, right through those trees over there, and don’t you dare turn off to the right or left. Your skiff’s small enough to squeeze through, and if Boss Authority’s chasing anybody, it’ll be the big boats. Make for Marina’s Place, if you can. She’ll give you refuge.”

“Please,” said Tally. “Can’t you do anything for me?”

“If I’m able, I’ll return and bring you a hex, honey. That I promise.” She nodded to me. “And good luck finding your daddy.”

Miss Arabella stepped off the boat and onto the wind-lashed water, walking the same as if it were dry land. Rain pelted down on all of us but it just seemed to miss her entirely, like she wasn’t touched by it. Miss Arabella walked into the trees and vanished. I knew right then that neither me nor Tally would ever see her again.

Tally was heartbroken, I could tell, and I wanted to comfort her, I wanted to throw my arms around her and hug her and tell her that it would be okay, that I thought she was great just the way she was, that we’d work this out somehow, together. But then I heard Drusilla Fey’s cackle ripple across the water and I heard the screams of the Parsnit folk and I knew there wasn’t time for comfort, not now, not yet.

So I rowed fast as I could away from the lagoon through the path, between two twirling cypresses and back into the wild tangled darkness of the swamp.

14

SOMEHOW WE GOT AWAY. I figured Miss Arabella cast a hex on our boat, because a big fog rose up around us, like we were traveling in a cloud. But I knew folks were after us, they were, Boss Authority’s men. We were right to float the narrow path through the waters, the one Miss Arabella bid us take. The rain lashed at us in cold prickles. Here and there we saw flickers, lanterns and torches burning through the darkness, lighting the air through the trees and tangle vines and rain. We heard hollers, men screeching commands at one another, cackling out like demons. The hunt was on, Boss Authority was making his move. I only hoped Pop was okay, wherever he was. I hoped Pop was hunting us too.