It could be argued that Old Clim and his son-in-law, Bob, ought to have been more curious about where the girl had come from.

  Even in a normal village, finding an unconscious, naked child at the edge of your pumpkin field just after dawn would be cause for alarm. But Greengrove was not a normal village.

  The Crone’s castle loomed on the horizon like a broken tooth, casting a long shadow that had frightened visitors away since Clim could remember. Then, on the year he turned forty, the Wall appeared, silent and absolute, cutting the domain and its villages off from the rest of the world. Now his hair had grown silver, and he had never seen anyone pass through it, neither man nor bird nor whisper of wind. Not even the gods, they said, could breach it.

  So how, then, did a little girl, maybe ten years old, skin pale and cold, hair tangled with weeds, come through?

  Yes, Clim and Bob absolutely should have been more curious. But in Greengrove, curiosity had long since been whittled down to nothing. Questions are a dangerous thing, when the one who has the answers is liable to kill you without provocation.

  The only thing in Clim’s mind at that point, as the mist clung to the fields and the light bled gold through the early morning fog, was what on earth to do with the girl.

  There were no rules for this. No protocol how to handle strangers, as strangers were impossible. No guidelines for reporting unusual occurrences, the Crone had no interest in the farmers’ superstitions. She’d grown weary of receiving breathless accounts of three-legged calves or frosts in Ripening. People who brought her news that were too mundane usually disappeared.

  But not saying anything would be like hiding something from the Crone, and that was certainly a very bad idea.

  That was Old Clim’s dilemma: hiding things from the Crone meant certain death, but telling her things also came with a disturbingly high probability of death. Each option loomed before him like a pit, and the pressure to choose turned his thoughts to stone.

  Bob, meanwhile, was blissfully unburdened by such mental gymnastics. He allowed the old, stubborn instinct to protect the young guide him, and never once considered the consequences. Without hesitation, he peeled off the shirt from his own back and wrapped the girl in it. Then he carried her to the nearest patch of shade like he would handle any of his own children.

  There were no visible injuries on the child, no signs of hunger or dehydration. In fact, she looked strangely well, too well. Her skin, though pale, was unblemished. Her limbs were thin but not starved. Her breath was slow and even. She looked healthier than any of the village children, who were inevitably scratched, bruised, and scarred by accidents or violence.

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  Her face was thin, with a blunt little nose and plain, even features that could have belonged to any village girl. Straight brows, firm and wide mouth, sharp chin. The most ordinary child Clim had ever seen.

  “She looks delicate,” Bob said, squinting thoughtfully at her face. “Harvestfest is in three weeks. I don’t think she’ll be ready for branding.”

  At those words, a wave of pure relief crashed through Old Clim, leaving his knees weak and his back damp with sudden sweat.

  Of course. He’d been thinking about it all wrong.

  There were no rules about strange girls appearing naked in your field at dawn. But there were very clear rules about children: a child must be presented to the Crone on the last day of Harvest, the Harvestfest, once they were old enough to behave themselves through the branding ceremony.

  This child was now his problem, but not forever. They would present her at the festival, and the Crone would decide her fate.

  Relieved, Clim threw himself into the day’s work with renewed purpose. The girl didn’t stir when they paused for their midday meal, nor when they finished their work and began the walk home. She stayed limp and silent, her breath steady, her small body warm and impossibly light in Bob’s arms.

  She didn’t wake even when Bob stopped in front of Clim’s cottage door, holding her with the easy strength of a man used to carrying sacks of grain, and looked back over his shoulder, giving his father-in-law a long, wordless look.

  “She can stay here,” he said. “Molly and I got no room. But you and Martha still got that little bed, don’t you?"

  He shoved the girl into the old man's hands and walked off without waiting for an answer. Old Clim stood a little in front of the house, holding back the tears that welled in his warm brown eyes. The bed which Bob mentioned belonged to his youngest child, Mary, who died of the scarlet fever a year ago. He couldn't bring himself to throw it away, and there were no younger children who needed the space, so the bed was just standing there, untouched. He was still standing there motionless, when Martha, his wife, opened the door. The twilight caught the pale skin of her forearm on the handle. She took one look at the impossible bundle in her husband's arms, and quietly pulled him in. Whether she overheard Bob, or followed the same line of thought, she led Clim straight to the little bed in the back room and pulled the cover off. He put the child to bed and covered her with the old blanket. Out of old habit, they tip-toed out of the room together, before Clim realized how strange whole situation was.

  "Wife," he asked urgently, "is that alright?"

  Martha’s grey eyes met his, steady as ever. “I saw this in a dream, a season back. She’ll wake tomorrow. “

  Clim sighed, part admiration, part exasperation. Martha had birthed eight children, buried three, and helped raise more babies than Clim could count without taking off his boots. She was not going to be shaken by another naked child in her home, prophesized or otherwise.

  They sat in silence for a while, each deep in their own thoughts. Then they went to sleep together, as they always did.