“That’s all right, lass,” Orna said, shifting a pot onto the fire. “Where are you headed? We don’t get many visitors here.”

“I’m . . .” I hesitated, caught without a satisfactory answer. I could hardly tell them the truth: that I had left home with no plan other than to set as much distance between myself and Cillian as I could. But I did not feel comfortable lying. “I have kin in these parts,” I said. “A little further on.”

“You’ll likely not get another ride for a long while,” said the innkeeper.

“Is Whistling Tor so far off the main roads?” I asked.

“Not so far that a carter couldn’t bring a person down here quickly enough,” said Orna, stirring the pot. A savory smell arose, making my mouth water. “But they won’t do it. Folk skirt around us. Nobody comes here.This place is under a curse.”

“A curse?” This grew stranger and stranger.

“That’s right,” said Tomas. “Step outside that barrier at night and you put yourself in deadly danger from what’s up the hill there. Even by day, folk don’t pass the way you came if they can avoid it.”

“The name is unusual.Whistling Tor.The hill you mention is the tor, I suppose. But why whistling?”

Tomas poured ale for himself and his wife and settled on a bench. “I suppose it once was a bare hill, the kind you’d call a tor, but that would have been a long time ago.The forest has grown up all over it, and it’s full of presences. Things that lead you out of your way, then swallow you up and spit out the pieces.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know the answer.

“Manifestations,” said Tomas weightily. “They’re everywhere; there’s no getting rid of them.They were called forth long ago; nigh on a hundred years they’ve plagued this place.”

“Nobody can say exactly what they are,” put in Orna.“All we know is, the hill’s swarming with them.