Night Noises
That night the leaks get worse — as if Sera's magic, cooped up and worried, is pacing the farm in her place.
The moths come first. They gather on your window screen in the shape of letters — actual letters, spelling H-U-R-Y, because apparently moths can't spell. Then all the clocks in the house agree to strike midnight together, which would be less alarming if the house had more than two clocks and either of them worked. Out in the yard, the well bucket lowers itself, politely, and comes up full of moonlight instead of water. It sloshes.
You go down to the cellar. Sera is standing rigid at the little window, horn glimmering, and doesn't hear you come in — and for a moment you see what she's watching: far off at the meadow's grey edge, three wolf-shapes, sitting still as chess pieces. Not hunting. Waiting. As if the grey is a tide coming in, and they know it.
“I have to get well, Madison,” Sera says, so quietly the bells in her voice barely ring. “I have to get well soon, or start being braver than I feel. And I can't do either in a potato cellar, however excellent the apricots.”
Something has to change. Tomorrow, it does — twice.