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limbs.
    Directly under her bomb path.
    Because he was trespassing on the land the Old Brook Prince had put in her keeping, and because a bad little girl had taken over her hand, she dropped one of the apples on him. It burst right on the top of his head.
    “Christ almighty goddamn!” He jumped to one side, all arms and legs, like Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz , dragging his hands over his head and staring up into the tree. “You little shit!”
    She was five-and-a-half, but she knew the hottest brand of hellfire when she heard it. The blast of shock made her toes let go and her knees turn weak. She slid sideways, screamed, clawed at the limb, and fell.
    Lily landed in his outstretched arms. What was left of her breath exploded out of her in a whump that caved her chest into her backbone, and stars shot across her eyes.
    She moaned and gulped. The stars turned into fireflies. He laid her on the soft earth. His sweaty, bruised, openmouthed face appeared in the middle of the stars, and his bony knees settled against her side. Syrupy brown apple juice slid down one side of his face like blood.
    Halfman . He could be Halfman, the haint who kept watch over MacKenzies and might float down from the mountains to eat little girls who’d been bad. He was staring at her with big gray eyes like a wolf’s.
    “Breathe, for God’s sake!” he said.
    She inhaled raggedly. “Don’t eat me!”
    “I’m not going to eat you!” He moved his hands over her face. They smelled like jonquils and gasoline. He was pulling aside one of the long red braids that was draped across her chin. He patted her head. Halfman probably wouldn’t have done that.
    A little reassured, her air coming back, she dug her elbows and heels into the ground, scooted away, and sat up. Sassafras licked her cheek. Lily’s eyes burned from staring at the stranger without a blink. “What were you doing up there?” he demanded.
    “Playing.”
    “Where’d you get apples in my willow tree?”
    “I brought ’em with me.”
    “Where do you live?”
    She jerked her shivering head toward the woods. “Way over yonder.”
    “How’d you get here?”
    “My daddy left me while he went to the big house to fix a window.”
    “Whose house?”
    “Down yonder. The prince’s house.” She pointed a trembling finger over her shoulder, toward the cracked road disappearing into the forest.
    His mouth was beginning to turn up at the corners. “What prince?”
    “The Old Brook Prince. He named me.”
    “You mean the Colebrook … prince?”
    She nodded. “But he went away when I was born.”
    “And you live way across the woods over there?” He lifted a long, wolfish arm and pointed.
    “Yeah. On a farm.”
    Now, he was staring at her without blinking. He took the end of one of her braids between his fingers and tugged it gently. “Lily? Is your name Lily MacKenzie?”
    She nodded, stunned.
    His wild gray eyes became tame, his horrible-looking face smiled, and he suddenly became the handsomest boy she’d ever seen. “Well, I’m the Old Brook Prince.”
    Artemas had a mission. He’d told Mrs. MacKenzie he’d come back, and this might be his only chance. He was thirteen, old enough to see that he couldn’t control much about his life. But he listened to the voice inside him, the one that always had a MacKenzie drawl to it. It said keep your promises and do what was right.
    Before the future closed in on him, he’d say his goodbyes.
    So he’d run away from the military school in Connecticut, taken a bus as far as his money held out, which wasMemphis, then started hitchhiking. On a lonely country road south of the city a pair of black boys with arms like stone posts had climbed out of their pickup truck and jumped him. His face throbbed and one side ached as if their fists were still in it.
    But he was here, finally. With the MacKenzies. When Mrs. MacKenzie came out on the porch and saw him riding behind Mr. MacKenzie and Lily on the tractor, she screamed and