CHAPTER THREE

  The Voice in the Teacup

  I

  “Impossible,” Gramma whispered. She and Ez stood frozen in the darkness, unable to see each other’s faces. All around them, the night air vibrated with the faint but unmistakable sound of flying insects. This hum was not identical to that of the three vexpids from before: it had a fuller, more monotonous timbre, and Ez thought she knew why—although she prayed she was mistaken—for it seemed to her to be the difference between a trio of singers and a choir. “You can kill them all with magic,” she said, “...right?”

  Gramma did not reply. Just then, a gibbous moon peeked through a gap in the clouds, spilling its glow over the rolling hillsides and revealing a hideous sight: a host of vexpids flying fast in a dense, arrow-shaped formation aimed directly at the cottage. The distance was too great and the light too dim to distinguish individuals or count them, but the sheer enormity of the formation was enough. The women ran for it, with Thoralf right behind them. Already the gap between the clouds was closing, plunging the world back into impenetrable darkness.

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  Ez burst through the cottage door followed by Gramma and the horse, whose size was such that his hindquarters only barely cleared the lintel. The moment his tail swished inside, Ez slammed the door. There was no point locking it. “Wilburn! Get down here!” she called. Sprinting to the closet, she snatched her bow and quiver off their hooks, then strung the bow with fumbling fingers.

  Gramma paced back and forth, raking a hand through her gray curls. “We’re in deep doo-doo,” she said. “I can’t kill that many with magic—I’m exhausted. Even fresh, it would be tricky. And I’m out of hongos! Darn me—Why didn’t I stock up?”

  Ez was too busy arming herself to care what hongos were, or why Gramma hadn't stocked up on them. The splitting axe, which had already slain one vexpid, would be her primary close-range weapon, and she shoved her hunting knife in her belt as a backup. Ransacking the closet, Ez came up with a hatchet and a carving knife for Wilburn. She turned around to hand them to him—but he wasn’t there. He hadn’t come down from the loft. “Wilburn!” Ez called. No answer came. How could he possibly be sleeping through this uproar? Ez raced up the stairs. The moment her head crested the horizon of the loft, she knew something was wrong—horribly wrong.

  Wilburn was frothing at the mouth. His spine was arched, his head thrown back into the pillow, his hands clenching, T-Rex fashion, at his chest. Toukie, the stuffed bird, lay discarded by the mattress. Wilburn's tendons strained. Every muscle was as taut as Ez’s bowstring. The lamplight curved over his half-open eyelids, revealing two bloodshot crescents of white. If Ez had been terrified before, it was as nothing to the panic that now gripped her like an iron fist. She forgot all about vexpids and weapons and Gramma Fark and magic as her world constricted to one devastating fact: her son was dying.