What had happened to the trow?

With the wind and rain growing all around her, Hæra stared at the ground in confusion. It was now dark enough that she’d turned on the Gator’s headlights, but her vision was still good enough to see beyond the beams.

The trow’s mound was gone. In its place was mud and torn grass, as if something had churned up the ground where his home had been.

Hæra looked around wildly, but she was alone. She called out, “Hello? Are you there?”

Like this morning, like yesterday morning, there was no reply.

“Answer me, you wretched thing! Are you all right?” Silence, except for the howl of the wind. “Are you hurt? If you are, I’ll—” Her wet ponytail slapped her in the face. She shoved the hair out of her mouth. “I’ll help you, I promise. I’ll bring you any food you want. Just stop this storm!”

The wind changed direction. A new smell touched her nostrils, then. New, but dreadfully familiar.

The smell of blood, somewhere on the ground.

Not a human’s blood, nor that of sheep or cow or dog. She’d never smelled this particular sort of blood before. She went icy with dread as she stumbled forward, toward the mud, in search of what must be there.

Let me be wrong. Let it be something else. A vole, a bird, a…

A little gray hand poked out from beneath a clump of mud.

Hæra gasped. She fell to her knees and wiped the water from her eyes before she pushed the mud away, seeking the rest of the arm.

It wasn’t there. The hand lay alone on the ground, dark blood pooled beneath the torn flesh of its wrist.

Hæra groaned. She kept digging, her hands slipping through the slimy earth in search of more—perhaps the trow was still alive here, somehow, with only his hand cut off? Her fingertips pushed into something soft that wasn’t mud. She leaned forward and saw a thin, reddened, fatty string of something.

Intestines.

Shite. Oh shite. Hæra sat back on her heels with a cry as the wind roared around her.

How? What could have done this? The trow had powerful magic. No dog or bird of prey could have caught him. It certainly wasn’t the work of a sheep or a cow. Save Jonathan and Madeleine, no human knew of his existence. So what…

Lightning flashed, illuminating a patch of earth just a couple of feet away.

Hæra squinted at it, and when the light faded, lurched forward. She slid on her knees, looking for what she must not have seen, what could not be here, what must not be here.