The girl spent the next three nights alone in the cottage. She did not sleep. Her mother did not return. She did not dare light a flame or leave.

She sat in the darkness, the taste of orange vapor on her tongue, the sound of Vaani's voice in her ears. Kinslayer. The venom was unmistakable. Then, softer, I have never lied to you. Fig massaged the space at the center of her palm where the weight of their pact had settled. I promise I mean you no harm.

No. The witch had said herself that her kind specialized in illusion and manipulation. The girl had seen her change clothes, change bodies. She wasn't sure she'd ever spoken to the actual witch herself. She'd had terse townspeople doubled over in laughter. She had charmed the girl to dizziness the moment they'd met. What kind of failed recluse, failed child, melted under the gaze of the first witch to cross her path?

Years of hiding, secrecy, and lies only to meet her mother's gaze from beneath the heel of a stranger. The image repeated as if branded behind her eyelids: her mother with her head pressed into dirt, her limbs limp on the ground, her eyes flickering with panic.

The girl felt the warmth of tears on her knees. She wrapped thick woven blankets around her shoulders. She stood guard another two nights.

Silence.

"Fig?"

Waves. Distant, crashing waves.

"Fig."

A voice like a bell. Clear like two green bands brought to kiss.

"All the way to the surface, honey. Come on."

Her eyes had sand on them. She raised her hands to brush them clean but found nothing. She blinked them open to a sky so deep it was almost black. She was lying down. Her back was cold.

"There we are."

She turned her head. To her left, kneeling in sand as pale as moondust, the witch carved from jade. She glowed in the darkness. When she opened her mouth, the flesh of her pale green insides was lighter than the night.

"We don't have much time. You haven't been sleeping."

Fig opened her mouth to speak but felt something cold and hard cover her lips. It tasted of salt.

"Not tonight. You must search when you wake up. You're looking for something foul. It will be small, I think. Hidden."

Something about the jade witch was different. Fig traced her silhouette, phosphorescent like a firefly. It was her hair. With each beat of the waves it creeped up over her shoulders, tightening into curls.

"Focus, hon."

Fig closed her eyes. She had done too much focusing lately. What good had come of it?

"You've started the unraveling. You can't stop it now. You have to see it through."

This wasn't real. She was alone. That's all she was. Her mother was gone. Her mother was all she'd ever had in the world.

"This thing, I don't know what it will look like," the witch continued. "But it will feel strange. Unnatural. It will tell you more about your mother."

Now she had the girl's attention.

The jade witch smiled. "I've been looking forward to meeting you."

Fig felt pressure against her forehead, quick and icy. Jade lips.

"Good luck."

Fig woke up sweating. She didn't remember falling asleep. Cold blue light blanketed the room --- it was morning. How many mornings had passed? Her head felt light, lighter than air. She sat up as if being pulled to the surface of deep water. Was Vaani tricking her, even now?

An iciness lingered above her brows. She pressed two fingers to it and then brought the fingers to her mouth. Sweet and bright, airy like spun sugar. Strange. Whatever magic had touched her was unlike any she'd encountered. Certainly not Vaani's, whose orange haze still stung at the back of her throat.

The unraveling. Her entire life had been wound tight like a ball of spun wool. She had tugged a string loose. Everything around her was falling apart.

Vertical, she was ravenous. She gnawed on stale bread from the market. She was still alone. If her mother had succeeded at killing Vaani she would be here by now, wiping blood from her knife. She was out there, somewhere. She needed Fig's help.

Would Vaani have killed her? No. She'd had the chance. Fig thought of the illusory Vaanis disappearing in puffs of smoke. She was taunting her mother, surely, but was not on the offensive. Would she have taken her captive? The enchantress had called her mother a criminal. Her mother had called the enchantress a liar.

All the information Fig had was under question. Vaani had claimed to be from a vast desert, the Wastes. Fig understood the concept of a dry climate, a beach with no water, but did not know the first thing about locating one --- nor surviving it. She would crack under the sun like a chicken bone in the fire. She didn't even know the name of Vaani's home, or where in the desert it was located. She hit her head against the wall.

Her mother had ordered her to stay here and wait. Guilt had kept her bound to that order. The garden would be due for a harvest soon. She had plenty to live on even without trips to market. She had the knowledge to sustain their life here, alone, indefinitely. While her mother choked to death in the field. While she limped around, hurt. While she was held hostage in some sandy pit.

Fig ran to the alder.

The proud tree stood as it always had. Someone had removed the blades her mother had thrown at its trunk and boughs. There were only deep cuts, oozing sap, to show for it. If there were footsteps to reveal the conflict, they had been swallowed by dense summer grass.

Fig walked the perimeter of the clearing but found no trace, magical or mundane, of her mother or the witch. She ripped grass from the earth and threw it against the wind in frustration. Bits of green pulp stuck to the sap on her hands. No illusions. Not anymore. She held back tears as she walked home.

There were no clues then, at the scene. She didn't dare ask after Vaani to the townspeople. If the enchantress knew her mother, had left with her mother, no one was safe to speak to.

Fig poured water over her hands to clean them. It was cool against her skin, reminding her of the sand's chill against her back. The line where the dark night sky met the waves. The jade whisper of the witch at her side: You must search when you wake up. Something foul. Small. Unnatural.

Fig's brow furrowed as she dug for the gliding words of her dream. It will tell you more about your mother. She was more desperate for a lead than scared of the power, or delusion, that would bring instructions to her dreams.

She began to search.

Her mother's organizational system was based more on feeling than logic. Fig shuffled through their dried herbs, animal bones, fats, feathers, and seeds with the routine of memorization. There was little in this cottage she had not seen or touched. She lingered more at the gaps of that which her mother had taken --- waterskin, rabbit jerky, flat throwing knives. In summer, when the heat was most unbearable, her mother would set up log targets for them to practice on. She said the wood cleaved most evenly when it was warm. Fig never took to it; her mother always won their contests. Fig had not seen her throw at a person before the night at the alder.

After crawling above and below their furniture, opening every chest and drawer, she declared the dwelling clear. She listened to each clink of glass, felt the resistance of each plank of wood, sniffed at each indecipherably labeled tonic. There was nothing out of place, no magic to be uncovered. The house her mother built was so decidedly unmagical she angered thinking of Vaani taunting her with illusions and smoke. Her mother did not pursue violence for fun. Something had driven her to attack. Fig would find out what once she'd found her and brought her home.

The yard was next. She began at the edge of their clearing and circled her way in. Her mother had told her to ignore all Vaani had said, but the listening, the tasting, the feeling of magic felt natural to her. It was like returning to spring after a long winter, like ice melting on the surface of the pond. The pond was as it always was. But life churned beneath.

Fig felt this especially as she approached the garden. Her mother had built trellises and raised beds in a spiraling pattern. They paired crops carefully to encourage symbiosis: tall stalks shaded the sun-shy, poisons protected the fragrant. The area buzzed with energy. Some sharp, some soft, some bold like thumping, some quiet like fabric rustling.

She took care to focus on only a few plants at a time, to not allow the orchestra of different sounds to flood her mind. She stood very still and took long, slow breaths. When she opened her eyes, her shadow had jumped from her left to her right and her legs were sore. She was tired again. Feeling for magic was dangerous, in its way. It consumed her energy and stole time. But she could feel herself finding the sensation more quickly, taking it in more precisely. It was like a muscle, then. Needing to be stretched, strained, built up. She shook out her body and tried again.

There was one area of the garden that was especially pungent. Her mother planted their most experimental seeds here: freakish gourds, fusions of multiple plants smashed together, speckled hot peppers she'd found in the wood. Fig wrinkled her nose. The magic of them was unusual and discordant. She sniffed for it despite wanting to turn away. There was something beneath it. Something rotting.

She pawed at each plant in confusion. It was the beginning of summer and she and her mother were diligent with the harvest. Nothing should have been left to sour in the sun. The more she searched for the smell, the more it escaped her. The magic of the plants grew louder as she touched them. Finally, sweating, she lowered her head entirely to the dirt. There. Beneath it all, under the fertilizer and dirt and roots and rocks. Something rotted and musty. Foul.

She came back with a shovel. With each mound of dirt she moved, her uneasiness grew. The smell was getting stronger. It was unlike anything she'd ever sensed. A distant cousin of rot, different in a way she couldn't place. The sun slid below the trees as she carved deeper into the earth.

When the hole was waist-deep, she hit something. A small wooden box tied together with twine and wooden charms. She recognized her mother's craftsmanship, though the charms themselves meant nothing to her. She had never seen the markings scratched onto their surface with a blade. It was shoddy work, rushed. She shook the box and heard the rattling of a sole item inside. If what she was sensing was a kind of magic, it wasn't anything from Vaani's world. Or nature. Perhaps it wasn't magic at all.

Fig felt the ache of her aloneness. No one to tutor her, now. No one to tell her what to do. No mother to take her into her arms, to explain the world or push it away. Whatever it was, she wasn't learning anything from it contained. She cut the twine with her knife.

The box slid open to reveal black fur. The unnatural smell intensified as it made contact with the air. She turned the box to roll the object onto its side and found four rounded toes with protruding claws. A hare's foot, cut neatly at the joint. Her mother had a few hung from their ceiling, but this one's fur was darker than anything she'd seen. Fig braced herself for it to animate or catch fire or burst.

Nothing happened. She waited a few moments before poking it with her finger. Dry. She recoiled. Waited a few moments, then touched it again. Unbearably dry. Making contact with the fur, still soft, made her feel like she hadn't drank for days, like her skin was white and peeling. She closed the box.

Dream-traveling ocean women needed to be more precise with their instructions. This strange, dry foot told her nothing. That her mother had hidden it however long ago was fair to assume, but for what purpose? To hide what? Searching for its magic produced only more strangeness.

She brought it with her inside to fill a cup with water and drink. Her mother had filled all their clay pots from the spring before she left. Fig drained five cups before her thirst was quenched. She poured a sixth, then stood over it, thinking. All she knew of the foot was that it was dry, and that its dryness was of no help.

She dropped it into her cup.

The foot absorbed the water as soon as its toes breached the surface. It swallowed the liquid with a loud gulping, then shuddered. Stunned, Fig poured more water and kept pouring until the fur puffed, then slicked back. Its color darkened to a black like the shadow of an eclipse. Water repelled from its surface like droplets on duck feathers. It reeked of decay, and yet not quite --- again some distant evolution. The smell intensified as the fur began to lengthen, expand, fill out into wider and rounder shapes. The body of a tar-black hare grew from the foot and shattered the cup. Its head sprouted two many-forked horns, pale as bone.

Fig clambered for an empty washbasin and vomited.

"Well, that's rude," the creature squeaked. Its eyes were a green so bright they made the hair of Fig's arms raise. More eyes flicked open upon the surface of its skin, each a different color, each swiveling in its socket to face her.

She vomited again.

The creature cackled. "You're not Iroche."

"I'm not what?" Fig panted as she tried to compose herself. The magic coming off of the creature was deeply wrong. She couldn't breathe. She balled her fists to shut it out.

"Iroche. The owner of this contract," the antlered hare replied. It shook to shed the excess liquid on the surface of its fur. "It's been a long time since someone used water to summon me."

Fig stared at its mouth while it spoke. Its tongue was the same unnerving green as its eyes. "As opposed to?"

"Blood!" it cackled again. Its laugh morphed into a wet cough as its body rippled. "This is no good. May I?" The creature eyed the scabbed-over wounds on Fig's thumbs.

"No." She pulled her hands to her chest.

The hare shrugged. "Then goodbye," it said, blinking its many eyes shut.

"Wait," Fig panicked.

The creature smiled. Or, at least, she believed it smiled as its rounded hare lips stretched and twitched.

"Fine," she surrendered.

With a sudden motion, the hare launched itself from the counter and nipped her finger.

"Ow," Fig exclaimed. She bent into a fighting stance but the hare only thumped its foot against the floor and licked its lips.

"Oh, relax," it chided. "I barely took any." She watched it swish its tongue against its cheeks. Its smile grew wider. "I know who you are. How may I be of service, daughter of Iroche?"

Fig did not relax her stance. She felt her heart beating between her ears. "What are you?"

She began to hate the curve of the creature's growing smile. "A treasure is so easily parted from its ignorance."

"That's no answer."

Its laughter was like shrieking. "You're right. I'm what your people call a demon."

She had heard that word before. From Vaani at their first meeting and before, the innkeeper's sister.

The innkeeper and his sister were newer additions to town. They had arrived only four summers ago, among the oldest to make the journey. Their heavy clothing and speech were unfamiliar, their hair white and rumpled like trampled snow.

The day after their arrival, Fig had found the sister wandering the woods. She'd been carrying something clenched between her hands. Fig had hidden immediately, but the woman must have heard her rustling. She'd begun to hobble towards the girl, shaking hands outstretched as if in protection. Worried, Fig had stepped out from her hiding place. The woman had fallen backwards and shrieked, shouting a single word over and over. After that, she never left the inn. Fig had never known what she'd said before meeting Vaani. She'd written her off as old, senile. Hearing Vaani's translation from the hare's mouth staggered her.

The demon seemed elated by her silence. It hopped from foot to foot. "You know nothing! How fun."

Fig rubbed at her temples. The grating of its voice kept her from thinking clearly. "You're some magical creature. And you mean to tell me you know my mother's name?" It felt wrong to speak the word, so she did not. There was never a more unfamiliar sound attempting to attach to a more familiar expression on a fierce, tanned face.

"You don't? Why, how ever more fun. Age has made her cautious." The demon looked around the room, finding it empty except for them. "But not cautious enough!" It laughed and laughed.

"What's this about a contract?" Fig asked.

"I'm not at liberty to discuss the finer details. I'm just the messenger. If you want to talk contract, you want to talk to the boss."

"Where is this boss?"

"I take you to him. That's the job." The demon wriggled. "You'll want to pack first."

"Pack?"

"We're going a long ways from here."

"How long?" Fig held out hope that her mother was only delayed, that she'd return any moment, that they could leave all of this behind like a sick dream. But so much had changed. Her unease was growing too large to abandon.

"Can't say," the demon mused. "But I can promise it's a one-way trip."

Fear struck her. She had never left the radius of a day's walk in any direction. Her mother had insisted they had all they needed here. Her mother had been the only thing she'd needed.

And now she was gone. Fig needed to know what she had hidden from her. She needed to know how to get her back. "This boss of yours knows my mother?" she demanded. "Knows her past?"

"Oh yes."

Fig began to pack.

The stars were bright by the time she finished. Fig stood in the garden staring at them. She had filled a large bag with preserved food, a waterskin, clothes, knives. She'd tied the smaller of their two bedrolls to the top. She and her mother used them most often to lay out in the field and look at the sky.

Her mother had a knack for knowing just when comets would streak like sparks, when planets would glitter into focus like jewels. They would lie out all night, bodies open to the wide expanse, telling stories about the constellations. Stories of animals, Beasts, stubborn little girls. Some real, some figment, the distinction never clear.

The stories Fig wanted most --- her father, her mother's life before her birth, her mother's mother --- were tucked away beyond her reach. The recesses of her mother's mind were distant, foreign spaces. She used to think there was such love in that. The life they led, sandwiched together between grass and galaxy, was the entirety of either of them. Two souls made up of one another.

But now, with a hole in their garden, a demon in their kitchen, a name rattling in the space between unknown and known, her sense of that love wavered. The life they'd led seemed as much an illusion as Vaani's silken shadows. There was so much she did not know. There was so much kept from her. She felt like a bug in a jar, afraid of the world that warped beyond the glass.

No. No, she would not accept that. Her mother loved her. That was one of the only truths in this world. Unwavering. When Fig found her mother, she would fold in front of her daughter and grin. She would praise the girl for her resourcefulness, her care. She would thank her for packing the good dried rabbit, the meat they hadn't oversalted. They would laugh at this mere hiccup in the steady breath of their lives. They would split the load of the heavy pack as they journeyed home together.

Fig smelled the demon before it spoke from behind her. "Done yet?"

"Almost," she replied without turning. "You smell terrible, you know."

It giggled like a child. "I'm not of your world. Your little mind can't comprehend what I'm supposed to smell like."

"You aren't?"

"Nope nope nope," it hummed, thumping its foot. "But I like it here. So much to trade for, so much to take." It rubbed its antlers against the ground. They were a strange fit upon its small head. The hare itself was a strange fit in the yard. The bright colors nestled in its darkness sapped the life from the plants, the trees. The greens of the forest were sickly and gaunt against its lolling tongue. "Without you lot around, it would be even easier. Gullible as far as the eyes can see."

"My lot? Attuned people?"

It looked at her sideways. "You're lucky your mother is a client. It's dangerous to know so little."

"I know plenty," Fig replied sharply, feeling the press of her knife against her ankle.

The demon giggled again. "Such violent urges! Oh how the fruits fell close to the tree."

Fig ignored its incessant laughter. The creature could be lying for all she knew. But if she killed it or sent it away she'd lose her only lead. She stared at the space between the trees that had swallowed her mother. She let time stretch ahead of her, prolonged her mother's final opportunity to step forward, intact, and lay the entire thing to rest.

Her mother did not emerge from the wood. Just as she had not as the sun had risen and set, risen and set.

If she would not return, Fig would pierce the ring and find her. With luck, they would be back before the next new moon. They would lie here together and wonder at the stars, sew new stories of their journey home upon the flickering beads of light. Nothing here would change until then. The gourds would grow, the rampion ripen, but their home would nestle into the dark as it always had.

Fig said goodbye to all of it.

"I'm ready."

"Excellent," the demon squealed. "Put your pack on and hold out your arms."

She did as instructed. The demon leapt from the ground and into her arms. Her knees buckled. It weighed much more than it looked like it should. She winced away from the foul magic emanating from its fur.

"Now snap my neck," it said.

"What?"

"Aw, worried about me?"

Fig had never ended a life. She had been trained to find, stalk, trap. She practiced throwing at targets and slicing meat. But her mother had never permitted her to see the act through to the end. The taking of life was a task for her mother, and her mother alone.

The demon wriggled impatiently. "I won't die, I promise. It's a shortcut."

"A shortcut?"

"Proprietary knowledge, O curious one."

Fig wrapped one hand below its jaw and the other at the base of its throat. Its many eyes blinked up at her. She hesitated.

It chuckled in its unbearable, high voice, "Unless you're scare---"

She slammed the demon's neck across her knee.