3. The Indifferent Harvest

The mist did not lift on the second day. It hung over Thornwick like a held breath, muting sounds and smearing edges until the village seemed to float in a grey half-world between waking and dream. Isabeau rose early, her sleep having been thin and troubled, full of dreams she could not quite remember but whose residue clung to her like the damp. The carving of Aisling was still on the bedside table where she had left it, its tiny mouth still open, its tiny hands still raised.

She dressed and stepped outside. The air was cold and wet, carrying the smell of peat smoke and something else—something sharper, almost metallic, like the air before a thunderstorm. The village was already awake. Figures moved through the mist, their shapes indistinct, their voices carrying in fragments that dissolved before they reached her ears. She caught snatches of conversation: something about a child, something about the well, something about the dark moon.

Finn's cottage was dark when she reached it. She knocked twice before the door opened, and when it did, she saw immediately that something had changed. Finn's face was grey, his eyes sunken, and his hands—his clever, scarred hands—were shaking badly.

"What happened?" she asked.

He stepped aside to let her in. The workshop was in disarray, carvings scattered across the floor as if someone had swept them from the shelves in a rage. In the center of the room, on the workbench, sat a single piece of oak wood—freshly cut, still weeping sap from its ends.

"They came last night," Finn said. His voice was hoarse, scraped raw. "After you left. Morag and two of the elders. They brought this." He gestured at the oak branch. "They told me to carve another gavel. A larger one. They said the old one had grown too small for the work that needs to be done."

"What work?"

Finn sat down heavily, his bad leg dragging. "There's a girl. Siobhan, her name is. Thirteen years old. She's been missing since yesterday evening. Her parents say she went to fetch water from the well and never came home. They searched all night. They found her scarf caught on a branch near the bog."

"Is she—"

"They haven't found a body. Not yet. But that's not the point." Finn rubbed his face with his shaking hands. "The point is what Morag is saying. She's telling the village that Siobhan's disappearance is a sign. A judgment. That the land has been wronged and is demanding restitution."

"Wronged by what?"

"By you." Finn looked up at her, and his eyes were terrible. "She's saying your presence here has angered the Sisters. The mountains. She's saying the old gods, the ones that were here before the church, before the law, have turned their faces from Thornwick because an outsider has trespassed on sacred ground. The oak. You went into the hollow. She saw you."

Isabeau felt the cold settle deeper into her bones. "That's ridiculous. Superstition. She can't seriously—"

"She can. And she will. She's been looking for a reason to convene the court since you arrived. Now she has one. A missing child. A desecrated oak. An outsider who asks too many questions." Finn picked up the oak branch and turned it in his hands. "The session will be held on the dark moon, just as she told you. Tomorrow night. And you will be the one on trial."

The silence that followed was thick and heavy. Isabeau looked at the carvings scattered across the floor—the twisted figures, the screaming faces, the animals with hollow eyes. They had been Finn's testimony, she realized. His record of everything he had witnessed but could not say aloud. And now Morag was forcing him to carve the instrument of her own destruction.

"You don't have to do it," she said. "You can refuse."

Finn laughed, a broken sound like dry twigs snapping. "I have refused before. Once. When Aisling was taken, I told them I would not carve the gavel. I told them I would not be part of it anymore." He pulled up his trouser leg, revealing the scarred, twisted limb beneath. "They held me down and broke my leg with a hammer. Morag said it was a mercy—that they could have broken my hands instead. Then she gave me the wood and told me to begin. I carved Aisling's gavel with a shattered leg and a heart full of poison. It was the finest work I have ever done. It had to be. They were watching."

Isabeau stared at the leg. The scars were old, but the damage was unmistakable. She thought about Finn at twelve, carving a gavel for his father's execution. She thought about him at thirty-something, carving another gavel with a broken leg, knowing his sister would die beneath it. And now he was being asked to do it again.

"The girl," she said. "Siobhan. Do you think she's really missing? Or is this something else?"

Finn set down the oak branch. "I don't know. There have been accidents before. The bog is treacherous, especially in the mist. But Morag has used accidents before. She knows how to turn misfortune into a weapon. If Siobhan is dead, Morag will find a way to make it your fault. If she's alive—" He paused. "If she's alive, Morag will still find a way."

Isabeau stood up. She walked to the window and looked out at the village, at the mist, at the oak that dominated the center of everything. "I need to find her. The girl. If she's alive, I need to prove it. If she's dead, I need to know how she died. Before tomorrow night."

"You won't get far. The village is closed. No one will help you. They're all afraid."

"Then I'll go alone."

Finn was quiet for a long moment. Then he reached for his cane and pulled himself upright. "No," he said. "You won't. I know the bog better than anyone. I've been walking it since I was a child. If Siobhan is out there, I can help you find her."

"Why would you help me? You barely know me."

"Because I've spent thirty years being afraid. Thirty years carving gavels and keeping silent. And what has it brought me? A broken leg and a house full of wooden ghosts." He looked at her, and in his eyes she saw something she had not seen before—not hope, exactly, but the shadow of hope. The memory of it. "Aisling believed someone would come. I told her she was a fool. I told her the world didn't care about Thornwick. And then you came. You're not what I expected. You're not a constable with a badge or a lawyer with papers. You're just a woman with questions and a recorder. But you came. And if I don't help you now, then Aisling died for nothing."

The bog began where the village ended, a vast expanse of wet, peaty ground that stretched for miles in every direction. It was a landscape that defied easy description—not quite land, not quite water, but something in between, a place where boundaries blurred and the familiar rules of the world seemed to loosen their grip. Pools of dark water reflected the grey sky, their surfaces broken by clumps of sedge and the occasional twisted tree. The ground underfoot was spongy and uncertain, and the air smelled of decay, ancient and sweet.

Finn led the way, his cane finding solid ground with an instinct born of long practice. Isabeau followed close behind, a coil of rope slung over her shoulder, her boots sinking into the peat with every step.

"The search party would have started here," Finn said, pointing to a cluster of footprints in the mud. "They would have followed the main path to the well, then fanned out. Siobhan's scarf was found near the Black Pool, about half a mile east."

"Black Pool?"

"It's the deepest part of the bog. The water is dark as ink, and it never freezes, even in the worst winters. The old stories say it goes all the way down to the underworld. That's where they put the bodies."

Isabeau stopped walking. "The bodies?"

"The ones they don't want found. The constabulary searches, but the Black Pool is deep, and the peat preserves things. A body can sink into it and never surface. There are dozens down there, I imagine. Maybe more. All the people who crossed the court over the centuries. All the lessons that needed to be taught." Finn's voice was matter-of-fact, as if he were describing the weather. "My father is down there. Aisling is down there. And if we don't find Siobhan, she may join them."

They walked in silence for another twenty minutes. The mist thickened as they moved deeper into the bog, reducing visibility to a few dozen feet. Sounds carried strangely in the damp air—the call of a bird could seem to come from everywhere at once, the splash of water from nowhere at all. Isabeau found herself glancing over her shoulder repeatedly, though she could not have said what she expected to see.

"There," Finn said suddenly, pointing.

Ahead of them, caught on a low-hanging branch of a stunted willow, was a piece of fabric. Blue, with a pattern of small white flowers. A child's scarf.

They approached the tree carefully. The ground around it was churned, as if someone had struggled here. Finn crouched down, examining the mud with a tracker's eye.

"Small footprints," he said. "Bare feet, I think. And here—" He pointed to a deeper impression, larger and heavier. "Someone else. A man's boots. The search party, maybe. But these are fresh. Fresher than yesterday."

"Could she be alive? Hiding somewhere?"

Finn shook his head slowly. "I don't know. But there's something else. Look at this." He pointed to a dark stain on the peat, still glistening wet. "Blood. Not much, but recent. A few hours at most."

Isabeau's heart hammered against her ribs. She turned in a slow circle, scanning the mist for any sign of movement. "Siobhan!" she called. "Siobhan, if you can hear me, we're here to help!"

Her voice died in the mist, swallowed without echo. She called again, louder. Nothing.

"She may not be able to answer," Finn said quietly. "If she's injured. Or hiding." He straightened up, leaning on his cane. "The Black Pool is another quarter mile east. If someone brought her this way, that's where they would be heading."

"To kill her?"

"To make her disappear."

They moved faster now, urgency overcoming caution. The ground grew softer underfoot, the pools of dark water more frequent and larger. The mist pressed close, cold and damp, and Isabeau could feel the weight of the bog around her—the ancient stillness, the patient hunger of the peat.

And then, through the grey curtain, she heard it. A voice. A child's voice, thin and frightened, singing softly to itself.

"Wait," she whispered, grabbing Finn's arm. "Listen."

The song was barely audible, a tuneless murmur that came and went on the shifting air. But it was unmistakably human, unmistakably young.

"Siobhan!" Isabeau called again.

This time, the singing stopped. And then, from somewhere ahead, a small voice answered: "Here. I'm here. Please. I'm cold."

They found her huddled in the hollow of a fallen tree, her arms wrapped around her knees, her feet bare and bleeding. She was a thin child, all angles and shadows, with dark hair plastered to her face by the damp. When she saw them, she began to cry—soundlessly, her shoulders shaking, tears cutting tracks through the dirt on her cheeks.

Isabeau knelt beside her. "It's all right. You're safe now. We're going to take you home."

But Siobhan shook her head violently. "No. No home. Please. She said I had to stay here. She said I had to wait until the dark moon. She said if I went home, they would hurt my mother."

"Who said that?" Finn asked. His voice was gentle, but there was something hard beneath it.

"The tall woman. The one in the green dress. She came to the well last night. She said I had to go to the bog. She said it was a test. A trial. If I could survive until the dark moon, the Sisters would forgive the village. But if I tried to leave—" The girl's voice broke. "She said she would know. She said the Sisters see everything."

Isabeau and Finn exchanged a look. Morag. Morag had taken the child. Morag had left her in the bog, alone, in the cold and the mist, as part of some twisted ritual.

"How did you get the scarf?" Isabeau asked. "The one they found?"

"The tall woman took it. She cut it from my neck with a knife and threw it into the mud. She said they needed a sign. A token of the Sisters' displeasure." Siobhan's voice was barely a whisper now. "She said someone had to pay. An outsider. A woman who came asking questions. She said if I stayed hidden, the court would punish the outsider instead of me. But I'm so cold. I'm so cold."

Isabeau pulled off her coat and wrapped it around the girl's shoulders. "You're not going to stay here. We're taking you back. All the way back, out of the valley if we have to."

"Morag will know," Finn said quietly. "The moment we bring her into the village, Morag will know. And she'll act. She'll convene the court early. She'll find a way to turn this against us."

"Then what do you suggest? Leaving a child to freeze in the bog?"

Finn was silent. He looked at Siobhan, shivering in Isabeau's coat, and something shifted in his face—a wall coming down, a door opening. "No. Of course not. But we can't just walk her back to her parents. Morag controls the village. She controls the narrative. By the time we get there, she'll have already told everyone that you kidnapped the girl, or that you're the reason she was taken. She's been preparing for this. We need proof."

"Proof of what?"

"Proof that Morag orchestrated this. That Siobhan's disappearance wasn't an accident or a divine judgment. It was a setup, designed to give the court a reason to try you." Finn turned to the girl. "Siobhan, can you tell us anything else? Did the tall woman say anything about where she was going? What she was planning?"

The girl's teeth were chattering, but she nodded. "She said the court would meet tomorrow night. Under the oak. She said everyone would be there. She said—" She hesitated, her eyes going wide. "She said there would be a sacrifice. To restore balance. She said the land was hungry."

"A sacrifice," Isabeau repeated. "She means me."

"Maybe not only you," Finn said slowly. "Think about it. Morag has been preparing for this moment for weeks, maybe longer. She knew you were coming—the letter, the Observatory's notice. She's been laying a trap. And now she has a missing girl, a desecrated oak, and an outsider to blame. But she also has a village full of people who have been complicit in her crimes for years. People who might crack under pressure. People who might testify if they thought they could get away with it."

"People like you?"

"People like me." Finn met her eyes. "I've been afraid my whole life. First of the court, then of myself—of what I'd become by staying silent. But fear has a limit. It has a breaking point. And I think I've reached mine."

He turned and began walking back toward the village, his cane sinking into the peat with each step. "Take the girl to my workshop. It's the only place in Thornwick where no one will look—they avoid me, you've seen that. Keep her warm, keep her hidden. And then we need to find Cillian. And Deirdre, if she'll talk. And anyone else who might be willing to stand against Morag when the court convenes."

"And you?"

"I'm going to carve the gavel. The one Morag demanded. It has to be ready by tomorrow night, or she'll know something is wrong." He paused. "But I'm not going to carve it for her. I'm going to carve it for us. For my father. For Aisling. For everyone who's ever disappeared into the Black Pool. And when the court meets under the oak, I'm going to use it to break the silence. One way or another."

He limped away into the mist, his figure growing fainter and fainter until it was swallowed entirely. Isabeau stood alone with Siobhan, the girl's small hand cold in hers, and listened to the sounds of the bog—the drip of water, the rustle of wind, the distant cry of something unseen.

The dark moon was coming. And with it, the reckoning.

They made their way back to the village slowly, skirting the main path, avoiding the open ground where they might be seen. The mist was their ally now, hiding them from the windows of the cottages, muffling their footsteps. They reached Finn's workshop without being spotted, and Isabeau settled Siobhan in a corner behind a stack of uncarved wood, wrapping her in every blanket she could find.

"Stay here," she told the girl. "Don't make a sound. No matter what you hear. Finn and I will come back for you."

Siobhan nodded, her eyes still too wide, her body still trembling. But there was something else in her expression now—a flicker of defiance, of survival. She was her mother's daughter, Isabeau thought. She came from people who had endured this valley for generations. She would endure one more night.

The afternoon was waning when Isabeau slipped out of the workshop and made her way toward Cillian's cottage. The village was quiet, too quiet—a held-breath stillness that spoke of anticipation. Tomorrow night, she thought. Everyone was waiting for tomorrow night.

Cillian opened his door before she could knock. "I saw you coming," he said. "From the window. You're either very brave or very stupid to be walking around in broad daylight."

"Maybe both." She stepped inside. "I need your help."

She told him everything—about Siobhan, about Morag, about the court session that would convene under the dark moon. Cillian listened in silence, his face growing grimmer with each word.

"I knew Morag was ruthless," he said when she finished. "But I didn't think she would take a child. A thirteen-year-old girl. That's—" He shook his head. "That's a new low, even for her."

"Will you help us? When the court convenes, we need witnesses. People willing to speak. People willing to stand up and say what they've seen."

Cillian was quiet for a long moment. Outside, the light was beginning to fail, the mist darkening from grey to charcoal. When he spoke, his voice was heavy. "You're asking people to risk everything. Their homes, their families, their lives. The court doesn't forgive. It doesn't forget. If we stand against Morag and lose—"

"I know what I'm asking."

"Do you?" He looked at her, and his eyes were hard. "My mother is old. She's sick. She depends on me. If something happens to me, she has no one. That's not a small thing, Miss Calder. That's everything."

"I understand."

"No. You don't. You're from the outside. You can leave whenever you want. Go back to the lowlands, back to your office and your paperwork. You don't have to live with the consequences. We do." He turned away, staring out the window at the darkening village. "But I'll help you anyway. Because if I don't, then I'm no better than the people who stood by and watched while Eamon's animals were slaughtered. While Finn's father was drowned. While Aisling disappeared into the Black Pool. There has to be a line. There has to be a point where we stop being afraid and start being human."

Isabeau reached out and touched his arm. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet. We haven't won anything." He pulled on his jacket. "I'll talk to Deirdre. She's been angry for years—her husband disappeared when I was a boy, and everyone knows the court was involved. She might be willing. And there are others. People who've lost family, lost livelihoods, lost faith. Morag rules through fear, but fear is a brittle thing. Push it hard enough, and it shatters."

They made their plans quickly. Cillian would gather the potential witnesses—quietly, carefully, one by one. Finn would finish the gavel and prepare his testimony. Isabeau would stay with Siobhan, keeping her hidden until the court convened.

"And then?" Cillian asked.

"And then we go to the oak. All of us. And we tell the truth."

She left his cottage as dusk was falling. The mist had thickened again, blurring the world until there was no horizon, no sky, only the grey and the gathering dark. She walked quickly toward Finn's workshop, her mind racing with plans and contingencies and fears she could not quite name.

But when she reached the workshop, the door was open. And inside, the space where Siobhan had been hidden was empty. The blankets were still there, rumpled and still faintly warm. But the girl was gone.

"Siobhan?" Isabeau called, her voice sharp with panic. "Siobhan!"

No answer. The workshop was silent. And on the workbench, where Finn had been carving the new gavel, there was only a scattering of wood shavings and a single word scratched into the surface of the oak:

REMEMBER.

Outside, the mist swallowed the last of the light. And somewhere in the village, a woman's voice began to sing—the same keening melody, ancient and wordless, winding through the hollow like a thread through a needle's eye.

The dark moon was rising.