She would have loved to have some butter too, as hers was full of knives. There were eleven squared-off pats of it lined up upon the sweatbox shelf. Full of clover and birdsong and, oddly, sullen hints of clay. Even so they were all lovely. Auri searched her gathersack and looked through all her pockets twice, but in the end she still came up alack.

She closed the sweatbox tight. Then up the ladder to the open window of the loft. She put Foxen away, then made her slow way down the side of the barn, gathersack slung tight across her back.

On the ground Auri brushed her floating hair out of her face, then kissed the hulking dog atop his sleeping head. She skipped around the corner of the barn and took a dozen steps before the prickle on her neck told her that she was being watched.

She froze mid-step, gone still as stone. Touched by the wind, her hair moved of its own accord, slowly drifting to surround her face as gently as a puff of smoke.

Moving nothing but her eyes, Auri saw her. Up on the second floor, in the blackness of an open window, Auri saw a pale face even smaller than her own. A little girl was watching her, eyes wide, a tiny hand against her mouth.

What had she seen? Foxen’s green light shining through the slats? Auri’s tiny shape, obscured by hair like thistlepuff, barefoot in the moonlight?

Auri’s sudden smile was hidden by the curtain of her hair. She did a cartwheel then. Her first in ages. Her fine hair following, a comet tail. She cast her eyes around and saw a tree, a dark hole in its trunk. Auri danced toward it, twirling and leaping, then bent to look inside the hole.

Then, her back to the farmhouse, Auri opened Foxen’s box and heard a single tiny gasp thread through the silent night behind her. She pressed one hand against her mouth so that she wouldn’t laugh. The hole was perfect, just deep enough so that a little girl could reach inside and feel around. If she were curious, that is. If she were brave enough to stick her arm in nearly to her shoulder.

Auri pulled the crystal from her pocket. She kissed it, brave explorer that it was, and lucky too. It was the perfect thing. This was the perfect place. True, she was no longer in the Underthing. But even so, this was so true it could not be denied.

She wrapped the crystal in a leaf and lay it in the bottom of the hole.

Then she ran into the trees, dancing, leaping, giggling high and wild.