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pears, and all sorts of things. We cut pomegranates in half and ate the tart seeds with some of the small spoons that were strapped to the lid.
    â€œThis is fine Devil-hunting food, sis,” Luke said, and laughed. “I’ll be ready to take on any number of hoof-footed devil-boys, after this.”
    â€œIt’s not a joke,” I said, though I kind of felt like it was. There was something so impulsive, so careless, about picking up and going after the missing Redding boys based on nothing but some story on a late-night radio show. “River could be there. It could be him. This is as good a lead as any. Better than the tabloids, because the stories came from real people, not hack journalists. And even if it’s not River, it could still be Brodie. Odds are it’s probably one of them.”
    Sunshine jerked when I said Brodie’s name, and dropped her pink-red apple in the snow.
    Brodie had made me take off my shirt and kiss him like I meant it and stand still while he slit my wrists and left me for dead. But Sunshine . . . Having your own sparked-up parents take a bat to your head, and beat you into a coma . . . that probably did something bad to a person, deep down inside.
    Sunshine must have felt pretty sure we wouldn’t find Brodie in Virginia, or she never would have come along.
    â€œDon’t listen to Vi,” Luke said, sliding his arm around Sunshine’s hips and picking her apple out of the snow. “She’ll believe anything.”
    I scowled at that and Neely laughed. We sat in snowy silence for a few more minutes, and then Luke pulled Sunshine to her feet. They headed to the little cemetery by the church and began to point out the cool old names on the stones as they walked by.
    I finished my pomegranate just as the bells started chiming above me. A sweet older couple walked by, all dressed up in their warm winter finery.
    I looked over at Neely, and he had a glint in his blue eyes. It wasn’t the “I’m up to no good” one that he shared with his older brother. It was a worried glint. An “I’m thinking a lot but saying little” glint.
    But when Neely opened his mouth, all he said was, “I wish I had some coffee.”
    He’d already finished off the thermos that we’d brought. I shrugged at him, and then he looked at me and smiled his Neely smile. His blond hair was blowing in the chilly breeze, as was mine. He had on a chunky brown sweater and expensive dark trousers, and was just sitting on the steps with an earth-green scarf around his neck, looking like he was posing for the cover of a magazine called
Wintry Rich Boys
.
    I sat there a minute longer on the steps, and that was all it took for the restless feeling to start crawling up my insides again.
    â€œHey,”
I shouted at Luke and Sunshine.
“It’s time to go hunt some devils.”
    A local heard me as he was passing by, and raised his white eyebrows at me, but I just smiled at him until he smiled back.
    I slid my mittens on—another gift from Sunshine’s mom—and packed up the lunch. I didn’t have the heart to throw the used-up pomegranate halves away. They looked so pretty, the bright coral color against the white snow. So I left them turned upside down by the church steps.
    â‰ˆâ‰ˆâ‰ˆ
    It was cold. So damn cold.
    We had three tents. Luke and Sunshine were sharing one and Neely and me had the other two. We were in a tree-filled campground somewhere north of Washington Irving territory. I was surprised it was even open—we were the only people there except for a shy caretaker in a small cabin near the entrance.
    It was cold. But the stars were amazing.
    Sunshine built the fire, and it roared out its voice into the quiet black night. Sunshine and I had gone camping a few times since the summer—after Brodie she’d begun to take an interest in the natural world and she’d started teaching herself