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yell at her.
    Then I could hate her.
    I push the mean thoughts away, deep inside to the darkest places of me, where nobody can see.
    An Emmi don’t cry. Not even once.

    Fifth day. Midnight.
    We lie on the ground, in a hollow beside the trackway. We’re wrapped in our dogskin cloaks. Emmi’s tucked herself into one side of me. Nero’s huddled on th’other side, fast to sleep, his head tucked unner his wing.
    It’s a warm spring night. A soft breeze lifts the hair on my forehead. In the distance, a wolfdog howls an another answers. They’re a long ways off. Naught to worry about.
    I stare up at the sky. At the thousands an millions of stars that crowd the night. I look fer the Great Bear. The Little Bear. The Dragon. The North Star.
    I think about Pa. About what he told us. That our destiny, the story of our lives is written in the stars. An that he knew how to read ’em.
    An then I think about what Lugh said.
    Ain’t you figgered it out yet? It’s all in his head. There ain’t nuthin written in the stars. There ain’t no great plan. The world goes on. Our lives jest go on  …  in this gawdfersaken place. An that’s it. Till the day we die .
    I think of Pa layin out his stick circles an doin his spells an his chants, tryin to make the rain come. How he kept sayin he read it in the stars, that the stars said the rain was comin an how the rain never did come.
    Well, not till after Pa was dead. Not till it was too late. That means eether Pa was readin the stars wrong or the stars was tellin him lies.
    Or maybe the truth is this. That Pa couldn’t read the stars because there ain’t nuthin there to read. An all his spells an chants was jest him bein so desperate fer rain that he’d try any old thing, no matter how crazy.
    I used to like lookin at the night sky. Liked to think how one day Pa might teach me to read what the stars had to say. Now they jest look cold an far away.
    I shiver.
    I reckon Lugh’s right. He always is.
    There ain’t nuthin written in the stars.
    They’re jest lights in the sky. To show you the way in the dark.

    But.
    But.
    Pa knew about the men. Knew they’d come fer Lugh. Before I told him.
    Are they here? Have they come?
    They cain’t be stopped, Saba. It’s begun .
    An he knew he was gonna die. Knew his story was about to end.
    My time’s nearly up. I dunno what happens after this .
    If Pa couldn’t read the stars, if the stars ain’t got nuthin to say, how did he know all that?
    How did he know?

CROSSCREEK

S IXTH DAY . L ATE AFTERNOON .
    A breeze whispers by an, somewhere above my head, there’s a flurry of dry clicks. I stop. I look up. Three deer-bones hung together, high in a tree.
    I hear Pa’s voice in my head.
    After three days, the trackway’ll take you through a deep pine forest. Keep yer eyes peeled. When you see the windchimes in the tree you know you reached Crosscreek .
    Without the breeze, I would of missed ’em. I lick my parched lips. Emmi, I says. The windchimes. We’re here.
    I ain’t never bin so glad to be anywhere in my life. Since yesterday noon, every waterhole an every streamlet along the way’s eether bin dry or a deathwater covered in slimy yellow bloom. An we had our last meal yesterday mornin. We couldn’t of gone on much longer.
    Is this Crosscreek? says Emmi.
    I set down the dragger fer the last time.
    I close my eyes, stand there fer a moment. My body’s so sore an stiff an bone-tired I wish I never had to move it agin.
    I try to flex my fingers but they stay bent. They bin curled round the damn shafts so long they’ll probly stay like this till the day I die. I never thought I’d be haulin Emmi an the packs fer three days. An Em’s covered in bruises from head to toe, so she ain’t ezzackly got off light.
    I unstrap her from the dragger an help her to stand. I go to pick her up but she says, No. I’m gonna walk.
    You sure? I says. She nods. I shoulder our barksacks. Shove the dragger deep into the bushes where it cain’t be