A little man—two, no more like three feet tall and with skin the white of alabaster—hung from the tree. He was held in place by spikes of wood that had been driven through the palms of his hands to keep him aloft. His head lolled against his chest, and he was dressed in a ragged tatter of clothing all browns, moss greens and greys, his hair a bird’s nest of matted dreads.

She wanted to look away, but her gaze was drawn and locked to the pitiful figure. She’d thought he was a child at first, a thought too horrible to comprehend, that someone could do this to a child. But when she realized he was full-grown—some sort of fairy man, she supposed—his fate seemed no less awful.

The tears that hadn’t risen for her own situation—torn from her bed, killing the bogan, abandoned in this eerie silent wood with no way home—now filled her eyes. She wept for the little man, tears streaming down her cheeks.

That the bogans had done this, she had no doubt. And just as she’d known that she couldn’t leave the remains of Walker’s daughter on the side of the road, she couldn’t leave the little man hanging from this tree, either.

She dropped the knife to the ground. Catching hold of one of the spikes, she worked it back and forth, trying to get it loose. It was slick with tacky blood and hard to grip, and her hands and shoulders were aching by the time she was finally able to pull it free. Getting that first spike out turned out to the easiest part of the task. To get at the second one, she had to step in close, supporting the dead weight of the little man, while she worked on the spike. She could have let him dangle from it—that would certainly have been easier on her—but she couldn’t bring herself to let him just hang there while she tried to get his other hand free, even if he was dead and couldn’t feel anything anymore. It just didn’t seem right.

So she supported the weight of the dead man, holding his cold body in place with her own torso pressing him against the tree while she worked the bloody spike back and forth, her tears still flowing. When the spike came free at last, pulling out quickly with a final hard jerk, she lost her balance and collapsed at the foot of the tree. The little man tumbled to the grass beside her. Sitting up, she drew him onto her lap. She cradled him in her arms, and brushed the dreadlocks from his pale face, her tears dropping onto his skin.