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trees.
    Immanuelle snatched a ragged breath and screamed: “Judas!”
    She pushed to her feet, staggering to the curb, where half the road diverged toward the distant woodland. The path through the forest was leagues shorter than the long way around, and if Immanuelle took it she was certain she would make it home sooner.
    But Martha’s warning trailed through her mind: There is evil in the woods.
    But then she thought of the coming tithes and their leaking roof and the holes in Glory’s shoes. She thought of bad harvests, gruel suppers, and waning winter stores. She thought of everything they needed, and everything they lacked, and she took a step toward the tree line. Then another.
    At the forest’s border, it was quieter, the wind dying down. Immanuelle called for Judas once again, hands cupped around her mouth, staring into the shadows between the trees. But there wasnothing, just the whisper of the wind threading through the pines and seething through the high grass. Come hither, come hither, it seemed to say.
    Immanuelle felt something stir in the pit of her belly. She felt her heart quicken, beating as fast as a hummingbird’s wings. She glanced back toward the road, toward town. The sun was still partially obscured by storm clouds, but by the way it sat in the sky she knew she had close to an hour before it set fully. An hour to search for Judas, then. An hour to right her wrongs.
    She could do it, if she hurried. She knew she could fix her mistake yet, with no one—not even Martha—the wiser.
    Immanuelle took one halting step into the trees, and then another, her legs suddenly leaden, her feet numb in her boots.
    The wind flowed through the tree branches, beckoning her onward: Come hither. Come hither.
    All at once, she was running, breaking between the elms and oak trees. The air smelled of rain and sap, loam and the sweet decay of forest rot. Thunder sounded and the wind picked up again. Brambles snagged her dress and caught on the straps of her knapsack as she tore through the woodland.
    “Judas!” she shrieked, wading through the underbrush, tripping over tree roots and knots of tangled bramble. On and on she went, running through the forest as fast as her legs would carry her.
    But the ram was gone.
    And the sun was setting.
    And Immanuelle soon realized she was lost.
    Squinting through the rain, she turned, trying to retrace her footsteps. But the Darkwood seemed to shift as she moved, and she couldn’t find the path again. She was cold and alone and hungry. Her knees were weak and her knapsack felt heavy, as though it was weighted with stones. Ruefully she realized Martha hadbeen right to warn her against the woods, and she had been foolish to disobey.
    Gazing up to the treetops, Immanuelle saw that the last of the storm clouds were thinning. The wind still rattled the branches, but the pelting rain had died down to a drizzle, and the dull glow of the setting sun filtered through the pines. She followed its light, breaking west, running as fast as her numb feet would carry her. But the shadows were faster still, and night fell quick around her.
    As the last rays of sunlight died into darkness, Immanuelle’s knees buckled beneath her. She staggered, collapsing into a muddy nook between an oak tree’s roots. There, cowering in the muck, she drew her knees to her chest and tried to catch her breath. As the wind howled through the trees, she clutched her mother’s pendant for good luck.
    But she didn’t pray. She didn’t have the gall to do that.
    Overhead, the last of the storm died away, leaving only a scattering of stars and a gibbous moon that hung, low-slung, in the evening sky. As Immanuelle peered up into the distant heavens, a calm settled over her like the soft folds of a blanket, and she began to feel less alone, less afraid. There was something gentle about the way the moonlight licked the leaves and wind moved through the treetops. It was as though the Darkwood was singing her a lullaby,