“It’s not your place to wonder at what I feel.” And Laylee unearthed a small whip (hung from a belt beneath her cloak) and cracked it once through the air.

Alice gasped.

But Laylee did not care. For Alice it was easy to grieve; for Laylee it was nearly impossible. The ghost of the young boy was still very much alive for her, and currently he was prancing about the tub, making crude comments about Alice’s face.

Laylee cracked the whip again and the ghost screamed, disintegrating for just a moment. The damage was never permanent, but the whip worked well enough to keep the more ghoulish in line. Laylee cracked the whip just once more—

“Oh, for Feren’s sake!” cried Alice.

—and soon the boy’s disgruntled spirit was stone-faced and brooding, shooting Laylee dirty looks as he stood by, awaiting his send-off to the Otherwhere.

“Put the body into the tub,” Laylee demanded. “Do it now.”

Alice swallowed hard, too nervous to be contrary. It took a great deal of effort, but she managed to set aside her tears just long enough to lift the child into the water.

The moment the body hit the liquid, the churning waves were put to peace, and the red water went clear once more.

Alice smiled.

Laylee, meanwhile, had begun clearing a section of snow. From under the drift, she unearthed a large metal chest and unlatched the lid, revealing an assortment of ancient tools. Laylee grabbed several hard-bristled brushes, handed two to Alice, and said, “Now scrub off the filth.”

Alice looked up at her, eyes wide with fear. “What do you mean?” she whispered.

Laylee nodded to the water. “It looks clean now,” she said. “But you’ll see what your tears were worth as soon as you’re done with him.”

The scrubbing of six bodies took just under seven hours. Hands red and raw, fingers frozen, noses numbed beyond all sensation: by the end, all three children were nearly dead themselves. One corpse had been so intensely foul that the shadows had not only clung to him, they’d congealed to form a nearly impenetrable skin, and Oliver had to peel back the darkness one excruciating layer at a time. Alice, for her part, had quickly set aside her fears, reaching instead for fortitude, drawing from an inner well of strength so deep even Laylee took notice. These two strangers were extraordinary in their resolve, uncomplaining through the night, and Laylee was finally beginning to realize that these were not ordinary children. She couldn’t help but hope they weren’t there to harm her.

The sun switched shifts with the moon.

Weak morning light filtered through a changing sky, golden violets and dandelion blues offering the first rays of heat to be felt all night. The children’s arms were nearly broken with effort—and legs nearly paralyzed by cold—but the work of the evening was still unfinished. Laylee (who, lest we forget, had washed nine bodies of her own not ten hours prior) could hardly move for fatigue, but she made one final effort. Her cold, clumsy hands unearthed a mess of clothespins, and she offered a few shaking fistfuls to both Alice and Oliver. They three worked wordlessly—moving so slowly they might’ve been wading through warm milk—and hoisted half-sopping, half-frozen bodies onto a hefty clothesline. They pinned hinges to hawser, securing only necks and knees and elbows and the like; once done, dead heads lolled onto stone chests, limp hands flapped against locked wrists, and wet clothes whipped in the brisk morning wind. Six new bodies were strung alongside the nine from the day before, and as the three living children stepped back to admire their work, they fell over sideways and promptly fell asleep in the snow.

Too soon, they were awoken by an eager sun. The golden orb was glittering directly overhead, vibrating warmth with a cheerfulness that seemed remarkably out of place on this brisk afternoon. The snow under the necks and toes of our brave protagonists had melted in gentle waves, each cascade drifting their bodies down a modest slope back toward the castle. Slow, groggy, and drenched to the bone—they blinked open six bleary eyes into the blinding light.

The few birds still in residence had gathered for their daily conference, and Laylee saw them studying her. She groaned and turned away, rubbing her face as she did. They and she seldom spoke to one another, but she knew they pitied her, and this made her resent their airs and upturned beaks, and she could never forgive them for always looking down on her as they flew by. Only once had she climbed a tree tall enough to turn her nose up at them, but she’d only the briefest moment to revel in the glory of dim-witted pride before three doves took turns defecating on her head. Remembering this now, she cast a dark look at the birds, wiped imaginary excrement from her helmet, and—still scowling—dragged herself up out of the melted snow.

Meanwhile, Alice and Oliver remained half mired in the slushy filth, disoriented by sleep and forgetting where they were. They finally managed to help each other up, squelching to their feet and squinting in the noon light. Tired, hungry, and urgently requiring a washing, they looked to Laylee for instructions on how best to proceed. They were hoping she would invite them inside—maybe offer them a bit of breakfast or point them in the direction of a warm bath—

Instead, she said, “Come on then,” with a tired wave of her hand. “We’ve got to ship them off before they get soiled again. The bodies are very vulnerable right now.”

To say that Alice and Oliver were devastated would’ve been a gross understatement of the truth—but there was nothing to be done about their discomfort. Alice had agreed to her task, and Oliver had agreed to help Alice, and the both of them had agreed to assist Laylee. So they nodded, gritted their teeth, and staggered forward, sad and sopping in dripping clothes.