Chapter One

The Weight of Bone and Feather

The lantern casts circles of yellow light at Lottie’s side that sway with every step. It is dark and very, very late. The kind of late when monsters in stories come looking for little girls. If she were old enough to count distance in miles she would know there are over three to go, but she doesn't know. All she knows is the song Mam taught her, the one with directions tucked inside the lyrics that she sings now, whispering the words that tell her to keep the sun on her left and the rocks beneath her feet. But the sun is long gone and the night is thick around her shoulders, almost as thick as her long, black hair. 

If only she could ask Mam what to do and how to find her way without the sun to guide her. But Mam is the reason she is out in the middle of the night with a lantern, throwing patches of light in front of her that she follows with quick little steps. 

Mam is sick and she must hurry.

Lottie has to get to town. But town holds as much meaning as the moon. Lottie has never been to either and could better describe the moon than she could the town, for at least the moon—as far away as it is—Lottie has seen. Earlier, before the night rested on Lottie’s shoulders, Mam clutched her smock, pulling Lottie close, struggling to get the word out. “You have to find Bess McGowen. You have to get to town.” The last word scratched out of Mam’s throat, sounding like her hand scrubbing clothes with a rock at the river and Lottie grabbed the lantern and ran. 

Is town big or small, Lottie wonders. How will she know when she has arrived? For all of her six years, Lottie’s entire world has been her house, the trees with moss clinging to the branches, and the cave. But mostly, the shape of Lottie’s universe has been her mother’s hand, the curve of her mother’s back as she bent toward the earth digging up the vegetables that later they would roast, and the rise and fall of her mother’s chest as Lottie laid her head against it to sleep.

The thought of Mam curled tight in a ball on their straw mattress quickens Lottie’s steps but her foot catches in a collection of roots. She pitches forward, one knee striking the ground but she saves herself from falling. Tears well at the corners of her blue eyes, not from pain but from anger. Mam needs her and Lottie fears she will fail. 

The night is an unusual companion, one Lottie is unfamiliar with but she pushes herself forward with slow, exhausted steps until she emerges from the trees that have crowded next to her, the ground growing soft beneath her feet. The first hint of a new day shifts the sky from ink to something lighter and a familiar brine tangles her hair. Water. But it is not the river Lottie goes to with Mam to drink or bathe or wash their simple smocks. It is the vast expanse of water that Lottie is not allowed to go to by herself. Lottie twists the thin handle of the lantern in her small hand, has she gone the wrong way? All this time, all these steps, did she run in the wrong direction? 

Lottie tests her voice. “Mam?” 

Even if this was the slip of sea closest to their small house under a towering tree, it would still be too far from the shore for Mam to hear. Lottie steps toward the lapping waves to sit, burying her toes in the sand, and cries. How will she ever find her way? How will she be able to help Mam? Lottie had felt a strange heat pulsing across Mam’s skin when she was pulled close. Her breath had been as sour as something dead and even if Lottie did not have the answers, she was right to fear. 

The sky peels back another shade of gray and Lottie finally lifts her head. It is still dark enough to benefit from the aid of her lantern, but she extinguishes it now, squinting in the distance at a light shimmering far beyond the water. Lottie’s heart stirs, she needs to reach the source of that light.

But how? As she looks across the waves, a crest of something solid catches her eye. Is it simply the roll of a wave? A trick of the eye? A spine? A rock? 

Another beat of Lottie’s heart thuds against her still-growing ribs. 

Lottie always rushed past, or failed to sing in the first place, the last verse of the song Mam taught her. Sleeping dragons in sodden beds always frightened her but now Lottie stands, forgetting the lantern at her feet. The water is colder than she expected and her breath catches in her throat. If she needed to speak, she wouldn’t be able to, not until she managed to draw more air into her lungs. Grabbing ahold of her skirt, she lifts it above her knees, wishing it was Mam’s calloused hand she grasped instead of her skirt that could use a patch or two. 

Before Lottie takes another step she closes her eyes, singing the song, trying to remember if the sleeping dragon ever awakens. The lyrics offer no reason to dread that particular fear so Lottie opens her eyes and steps onto a rock. Her feet keep finding purchase until she is nothing but a small dot in the vast and open sea. Her progress is slippery and slow but perhaps because she is so slight, she never slips side to side. Or perhaps it is the song she sings, or perhaps it is the invisible thread of a mother’s love that keeps Lottie firmly planted, even on something so unsure. 

And then finally, Lottie’s feet once again find the sand. Nothing has ever felt so good but Lottie is gripped by fear. Never before has she been so far from Mam. She has come a long, long way, maybe too far, but there is only one direction to go.  

Up the shore between a twisted knot of branches, is a path and Lottie rushes toward it plunging into the arms of a forest that feels like home. Grooves are worn on both edges of the dirt, from what she does not know but she doesn’t stop, her wet skirt slapping her legs as she runs. Down a hill, through a clearing, round a curve, and there, at the sight of a wisp of smoke curling from a roof, Lottie stops running. Beyond that, she sees another roof. Her eyes rove past the second one to see more wafts of smoke, in clumps and rows. Lottie has only ever seen the house she shares with Mam and anything past the first roof would have astonished her, but this—more roofs than she can count—almost presses her to the ground with disbelief. 

Mam is not next to Lottie’s side to tell her where she is but she knows she has found the town. It is not only the thought of Mam alone and sick that makes Lottie feel she must find Bess McGowen before the narrow burst of light creeping up the horizon cracks the day wide open, it is also fear. In all of Lottie’s wildest dreams she could never have imagined such a collection of houses, and inside all those houses are people. How could so many live so closely? They must all know each other and Lottie is alone. Suddenly she is terrified she will never see Mam again.  

She dashes past two doors without knocking, then another, and five more, weaving her way through paths she is unfamiliar with in a way that makes her dizzy. She rushes by a window and is about to turn the corner when she stops, walks back, and touches her fingertips to the glass. Upside down bouquets of dried yarrow hang in a row on the other side of the pane.

It wasn’t the first thing Mam ever told her or even something Mam said often. But whenever Mam said these words her eyes turned gray and serious. “Wherever you find yourself my little Lot, always trust a house with hanging yarrow.” 

The song Mam taught her has gotten her this far and Lottie looks over her shoulder. Somewhere back through all the winding paths of town that she could not retrace if she tried, across the back of a sleeping dragon, and through the clutches of a forest, Mam is sick and waiting. So Lottie makes a fist and knocks. 

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