As soon as the familiar was gone, he closed his eyes and whispered, “Thank you,” to whatever their guide had been. He felt something then, a whisper so soft that it might have been a fern dreaming or the heartbeat of a vole underground. When he opened his eyes, the moonlight was dappled with apple red. Oliver was already on his knees, but he bowed his head, feeling complicated things he didn’t know how to deal with. When kindness came from murdered ghosts and lost pigs, and the adults that were supposed to help you were monsters that walked like men… What was he supposed to do? It wasn’t
...more
