Mop broke off his singing. “Yes.” The yes was full of confusion.

“Where is the child you had with you today?”

Rae strained but could not hear Mop’s reply. “Child?” she imagined him saying softly, much as Nessa had.

Beside her, Nessa, pacing, had begun to panic. “What can we do? What can we do?” She stopped in front of the basket. “Quick, Rae. In here. He’s already looked—if we’re lucky, he will not look again.”

Rae hesitated only a moment. Clambering inside, she made herself as small as she could. Nessa threw the pelt over her and closed the lid, just as Mop’s step drew near.

It’s not the wolf, thought Rae, feeling the fur and hide—the wolf skin on her skin. Not him. There’s no darkness. No terror. No grief. Still, her chest tightened; her lip quivered.

“I did have a child with me this morning.” Mop spoke loudly, as though hoping Ness would hear. “She’s gone with her mother, though. She was helping us with the flock for a time, a month or so, an apprentice, but her mother met us today, and she’s gone back to her family now.”

“He said she was his daughter,” a strange voice was protesting. “That’s his wife. I saw them this morning.”

“This is your wife?” Rae recognized the booted man’s voice. “This woman?”

“Yes,” Mop answered quietly. “This is my wife.”

The booted voice was vexed. “You said you were all alone.”

Rae, curled in the basket, tried to quell the trembling that threatened to give her away, tried to keep her breaths small and shallow and controlled. It’s not his pelt, not his, she repeated.

“I was all alone.” Nessa played at confusion and frailty. Her voice quavered. “Mop. Where have you been? When are we going home?”

“Soon, Ness,” Mop said slowly, beginning to understand Nessa’s deception. “You see, we needed the girl. My wife’s memory… she has not been well. I needed help with the flock and the house.”

“What girl?” Nessa said.

“They had a child!” the strange voice barked again. “They called her daughter! You dragged my own child out of my home, out of my wife’s arms because the midwife who saw her born could not be found… and these two walk brazenly about with a girl who cannot be their own!”

“And like a daughter she was, too,” Mop said mournfully. “A great help with the sheep. With my wife…” His voice dropped. “I don’t know how I’ll manage now that she’s gone back to her family.”

Frail Nessa became frailer. “What girl, Mop?”

The booted man could not hide his exasperation. “And where is this girl’s family? Where does she live? We still need to account for her.”

“Live?” said Mop. “Her family lives… in… in the… forest.” He paused, then added more confidently, “Her father’s a hunter. Excellent game.”

Rae, trembling, listened to Mop’s voice change. She had never heard him lie before. His words had taken on a slippery quality, as though coated with fish scale. She thought the booted man would sense them, too, these slippery fish words just hanging in the air, but he only sighed.