Chapter 107

I didn't know how long it would take for Mrs. Tentorville to get here, especially since Quiet had moved again. She could be helping with the pond, but I couldn't just leave Echo there petrified and bleeding all over the place, even if I could leave.

I crossed toward the winding steps in the center and started up as silently as I could. The raven sat on the banister waiting with its wing pointed at the shelf. In front of it, two large antlers speared into the air from a head I couldn't yet see. I rounded closer, tamping down my rage at the skin-walker so I could see straight. Then there she was, the old naked woman in a squat and chowing down on a bony foot protruding from behind the bookshelves. There were dead bodies there too?

Her jaw had unhinged again, that in itself too gruesome to watch. The air pulsed in waves around her, shot through with little rainbows, and I had no idea what that meant. What any of this meant. Who was she?