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bright. Then Will remembered how unchaste these family ties were—he and Clancy had slept with both Fan and Simon—and he wondered if he should think of their group in a different way.
    Smiling, he told himself, No. “Family” is appropriate.
    Tired of bouncing and jinking along rutted dirt roads, Will was glad to see Taintwell come into view. No one would ever have thought it a pretty village. More quirky than quaint, it had been pieced together over the course of centuries. Mongrels who’d heard of the settlement simply drifted its way like windborne seeds.
    Will had never seen so many improvisational building techniques and materials as he’d seen in Taintwell. Foraged trees and scavenged stones. Mud, straw, dung, clay, and moss. Even driftwood and shells from the shore, and stout rope and oakum-edged timbers and planking from abandoned fishing boats and wrecked ships. In fact, two Taintwellians lived in old boats, forever grounded far from the bounding sea.
    Homes and shops leaned, sagged, bulged, or stood straight beneath roofs of sod or thatch, slate or tin or wood shakes. Dirt lanes meandered hither and yon, as if wearily trying to follow the buildings that cropped up wherever new residents chose to build them. Mongrels loved color, too, and made no attempt to apply it with harmony in mind. Walls, doors, window frames, and fences shrilled for attention, like members of a discordant choir trying to out-sing their fellows.
    Roughly a century earlier, Fan had told Will, a kind of village board was formed. An attempt to impose some order on the settlement seemed long overdue. These unpaid selectmen laid out new streets, named the old, and recorded and defined existing plats (which led to a good deal of bickering, for Taintwellians had never much bothered with property lines). The board also established a village square around an artesian well. Soon, a gazebo ringed by flowerbeds stood in the center. Business owners were encouraged to relocate around the square, which residents stubbornly referred to as the Green.
    The village was then called Dark Corners. A few months later, Purin Province renamed it Taintwell.
    “You haven’t the dark corners where broken wings beat.”
    As if his recollection of the name Dark Corners had the power to summon, Will’s field of vision was suddenly filled by a chilling sight. The Spiritorium stood on the Green.
    The OMT wobbled as Will briefly lost control of it. He parked at the edge of the grassy square near a towering, ancient oak that reigned over one corner. Clattering in the breeze, its leaves looked like a tangle of restless claws. Several fell and skittered away as Will got out of his vehicle.
    Clouds drifted across the sky. Sunlight faded and flared, and the wagon pulsed from dull brass to brilliant gold. Again, no horses were present. Again, that wasn’t much of a mystery. Taintwell was littered with stables.
    Crouching down, largely concealed by the tree’s enormous trunk, Will pretended to study his transport as if searching for some malfunctioning part. If someone approached him, he’d simply grab the jug of water Fan always carried in the OMT and refill its boiler.
    Two tent signs stood at either side of the Spiritorium and two staked signs listed in front and in back of it. FOR HIRE and INQUIRE HERE read the former. ALL SOULS DAY read the latter—a cryptic proclamation that, unlike the messages on the tent signs, wasn’t professionally painted.
    A Taintwellian woman Will knew only as Mrs. Rumpiton spoke animatedly with the velvet-clad ghosty man, who sat on a stool with his back to Will. She nodded, then nodded again. He held her hand and patted it. Mrs. Rumpiton turned away and walked in Will’s direction.
    He resumed peering and poking at the OMT until the woman was close enough for a greeting. Niceties out of the way, Will indulged his curiosity. “What’s all that about?” he asked ingenuously, lifting his chin toward the gilded wagon. “I’ve never seen