“Stop stalling,” she says. “I want to know exactly what the hell’s going on here.”

Joe

She made no sound, but Joe still looked up at her approach. She seemed taller and more regal than he remembered, but maybe that was only because he was sitting cross-legged in the dirt while she was still standing. He started to get up, but she sank gracefully into a position similar to his, facing him, their knees almost touching.

“Now I know for sure I’m dead,” he said as she smoothed out the fringes dangling from the hem of her dress.

“But you don’t have to be,” Anwatan told him. “I can take you back.”

“I like the sound of that. You’re not what I was expecting when I called out to the spirits, but I’m happy to see you all the same—don’t doubt that for a moment.”

She cast her eyes down for a moment and looked—not exactly nervous. Just uncertain.

“But I have to ask you a favour first,” she said.

Joe took out his tobacco pouch and started to roll another cigarette.

“The thing with favours,” he said, not bothering to look at what his fingers were doing, “is that they should be just that, no strings attached. Maybe you don’t know me well enough, but I don’t trade in favours. But if you have a need, if I can help you and no one gets hurt in the process, all you’ve got to do is ask.”

“I didn’t really mean it like that. It’s just . . . really important.”

Joe put the cigarette between his lips, lit it with a match, and took a drag, before offering it to her. She hesitated a moment before taking the cigarette from his fingers and bringing it up to her own lips. Joe stowed his tobacco pouch away, then took the smoke when she handed it back to him.

“It’s all truth between us now, right?” he said.

She nodded.

“So, tell me what you need me to do.”

“I . . . “ She sighed, started again. “I need you to hide a bogan for me.”

Joe’s eyebrows went up.

“A bogan,” he repeated.

“Yes.”

“One of the ones that killed you?”

She shook her head. “But he was with them. He was there. I promised him safety, but I know if the crows find him, they’ll tear him apart the way they did the others. And if they don’t, somebody else probably will.”

“Whoa, back up a little there. The crows have been killing bogans?”

“Raven called the crow girls to heal you,” she said, “and they told him that the crows he’d sent out to find the bogans had indeed found them, but then they’d torn them apart.”