She swam beneath the dock. The pilings were slimy and sharp with barnacles. The waves slapped against the wood. They were low but still strong enough to lift her up and down when she surfaced, bumping the top of her head against the dock’s wooden slats.

She was perfectly hidden. There would never be a better time.

“Sister Madeleine,” she called again. “Help me.”

Madeleine was imagining things. Hallucinating. If she told anyone, they’d put her away.

Nevertheless, she couldn’t move as she looked out over the dark water, where the voice had come to her. What a voice it had been! Deep, rumbling, like a wave crashing on the rocks. Vaguely feminine, if she had to specify, but…

Not quite human.

That was the thing. It hadn’t sounded human. Madeleine had never heard a voice like that in her life.

Maybe Hannah hadn’t been too far off the mark with her worries about magical forces. Madeleine should walk away right now. She wasn’t one to worry excessively about the devil, but she worried just the right amount, and this seemed like his work. What else could it be?

What else, indeed?

She closed her eyes and crossed herself. “Hail Mary,” she whispered, “full of grace, pray for me now. Protect me and intercede for me as I…” She took a deep breath. “As I do something absurd. But if you’re the one who’s calling to give me an answer⁠—”

(An answer? What was her question?)

“Then let me receive the lesson with grace. Amen.”

She crossed herself again and then swept the flashlight’s beam down toward the sea. She saw nothing unusual: just a small wooden dock with a lone dinghy bobbing next to it.

“Hello?” Madeleine called. “Are you there?”

That wasn’t what she’d meant to say. She’d meant to say, Is anyone there? Not to address this other presence as if it were an acquaintance!

She waited. No reply. Madeleine must have imagined it after all.

That was a relief. It was not a disappointment. Her life left little room for adventure, and that was just fine. She was only tired from shepherding a bunch of teenage girls all over Scotland, the remarkable scenery punctuated by arguments, complaints, and panic over lost objects. She turned to go.

As she did, she heard another cry. Not like the last one at all. It was short and sharp, sounded pained, and had no actual words. In fact, it had sounded like nothing so much as…

A neigh?

This couldn’t be happening. Not here, not now.

Hæra tugged her head again, sharply, and got an even sharper pain in return, although this time she managed not to cry out. That was difficult, because it hurt. A lot.