Page 69 of Winter Lost

The ground wallowed in hillocks as small as her SUV and as large as a mountain, providing homes for small creatures in its meager plant life. Tough creatures survived—thrived, even—in this barren landscape. Tracy respected tough.

The dwelling—calling it a hut would have been insulting to…one or the other of them—blended in with the landscape so well that someone less observant might have driven right by it. As she got closer, she noticed the fit of the untreated, age-grayed wood was surprisingly tight in this hot, dry climate. The temperatures here sucked the moisture out of most wood, shrinking it in the first years so that gaps should have formed. There should have been repairs for that, and there weren’t. This building had been here a long time. The wind and sand had scored the surface, but it was largely unchanged from the day it had been built. Assuming, of course, it had been built.

Her own home, her first and oldest home, had been hatched.

The porch in front, covered to provide shelter from the sun, was larger than the whole of the building. She stepped onto it to knock at the door.

A rough piece of wood moved and an eye appeared briefly before the wood returned to its place. Nothing happened.

Tracy knocked again. “Grandmother, grandmother, grandmother.”

“That rot doesn’t work with me,” an amused voice answered her. “I’m not fae. And to that end—I don’t speak with liars.”

Tracy contemplated that. Heaved a sigh. “Really?”

Silence answered her.

She shrugged. “Very well.”

Dropping her magic and her illusions, Baba Yaga dusted off her heavy skirt and snapped the steel of her teeth together a couple of times because she enjoyed the sound.

The door opened, and a wizened old woman with Native American coloring and features came out, a tray with two cups of hot tea in chipped mugs in her hands. One mug read Proud Parent of a Valedictorian at Morris Middle School. The other one read #1 Witch. The old woman crossed the porch and walked around the side where a small table and a pair of cheap metal chairs awaited.

They seated themselves, and the old woman handed Baba Yaga the cup that read #1 Witch and took the other for herself with a contented sigh.

“What brings you here?” the old woman asked.

“A mutual friend who now owes me a favor.”

The old woman smiled, and the wrinkles in her face deepened. “Oh, that scoundrel,” she murmured. “Better that you don’t collect favors from him. They don’t turn out quite the way you expect.”

“He says that you’ve been bored. He said, ‘Perhaps she might consider decorating a fae tavern for the season. The green man who runs it has agreed—and something interesting might drop in her web.’ ”

“Well, now,” said the old woman.

9

Mercy

I awoke to a finger drifting over my cheek. According to my inner clock, it was early morning—still dark this time of year. I smiled at the gentle touch and pressed my face into it.

But both of Adam’s arms were wrapped securely around my waist, holding me against his chest.

The hand on my cheek was icy.

Adam’s hands, like his body, were usually a few degrees warmer than a human’s would have been.

I opened my eyes and there was a stranger’s face not an inch from mine. If he hadn’t been dead, I’d have been breathing his air, he was that close. Panic held me frozen as he lowered his face and pressed his chill, hungry lips to mine.

I don’t know how a hungry ghost is made. There are stories, but they are told by the survivors, people trying to explain the inexplicable.

Gary once told me a tale he had heard from an old man at a pub in Yorkshire. A ship had capsized and the crew escaped on a boat. They drifted, lost at sea, for a very long time. After the food and water were gone, they ate each other—the last one starving to death.

Eventually, the boat washed ashore at a small fishing village. The ghosts of the sailors had nearly consumed the whole town before some bright person burned the boat and buried the ashes in holy ground. Hungry ghosts are dangerous.

Other ghosts could and would feed from the living. Once, when I’d been rendered defenseless, I’d had a ghost feed on me without consent. But hungry ghosts are different. They kill their victims.

Some kill in a single feeding, but others drain their prey for weeks or months before they die. Having fed once from a particular person, a hungry ghost can follow that person across oceans and continents. They don’t stop until their chosen quarry is dead.