It was late when Martin eased the window sash up to climb onto the porch roof, well past astronomical twilight. According to Aunt Rinner, that was key for good spectral visibility with a full moon and, as she admonished regularly, God knew Martin needed every advantage to see his plan through and not die. The night was quiet when a sudden blur of noise rose up the stairs from the living room. Martin froze with his legs straddling the window ledge, heart galloping. He strained to hear the tell-tale squeak of the third step from the top. Nothing. Just the normal sound of the cooking show his mom watched whenever she wasn’t feeling well. The jubilant transition music masked the squealing protest of old wood as Martin wrestled the window shut.

Mom said being a paramedic was her calling, and she loved that every shift was different, but she complained about full-moon duty when the valley crazies called 911 non-stop and she was always late coming home. So, Martin was low-key pumped when her team got scheduled for tonight, both a full moon and Halloween. A double whammy for Mom, but perfect for Martin to get to the crossroads and back without being questioned or stopped. He’d gone downstairs to grab the apples and carrots from the fridge and freaked out to see her at the kitchen table. She’d called in sick. Martin was more than a little skeptical, but she’d been sluglike on the couch in front of the TV ever since and she did look terrible, her eyes red and swollen. It was the only reason he thought he could still attempt his plan.

Usually Mom felt obliged to “put her eyes on him” before she went to bed when it was just the two of them at home. As a precaution Martin arranged pillows under the covers of his bed, but it wouldn’t fool her if she did more than glance in from the doorway. Heck, if she was real sick she might spend the whole night on the couch. In the past Barley’s thumping tail and excited whining to go out, go sniffing, go explore whatever, would have given Martin away. But if Barley were here, Martin wouldn’t be crawling out the window to find the Hunt.

The asphalt shingles bit into his fingers as he hung off the porch roof and he kicked off a post before letting go. Mulch muffled the drop. Mom would be angry he’d squished a few mums, but when he was back and everything was normal again she’d forgive him. And sure, she’d probably be mad as hell that he’d gone to Aunt Rinner for help, but Dad would help Martin smooth that over when he got home. He’d understand that getting Barley back was worth some harmless foolishness. Martin pulled a backpack out from where he’d stashed it under the porch, dropped the apple and carrots in the front pouch, and slung it over one shoulder. It held everything Aunt Rinner said he’d need for protection and the weird flat rock with the hole in the middle—so he could see through the veil. He had to bargain with the Huntsman himself to get Barley back, and to do that he’d have to see the invisible.

~~~

Martin’s great aunt was one of the touched Satterfields, which just meant she was peculiar. Still, Aunt Rinner’s odd stories and seeming second-sight had always made Mom nervous even though Dad teased her for believing any of it. Mom didn’t like woo-woo talk, even the faery tales told for entertainment. Martin was hopeful that one particular story was more real than not. When he’d first gotten Barley for his ninth birthday, his great aunt said with great solemnity, “Boy, you best keep ahold of that pup at night. The Hunt is liable to steal him away for their own pack. Nobody here about fears them as they should anymore, but I’ve seen them rushing about when the weather turns.” Martin was fascinated but soon forgot the way kids do when always running after leggy hounds. The sudden loss of Barley after six short years brought the warning back to mind and Martin snuck off to Aunt Rinner for help.

First he told her about finding Barley’s beloved, battered body in the late summer grass after a delivery truck hit him. Then he explained how good they’d gotten in the hunt trials and how excited he was to show his dad what all they’d learned. He hoped she’d get why he needed Barley back before Dad came home on leave. But Martin’s tragedy hadn’t stirred her. He dropped all his pride and wept. He confessed that he couldn’t stop thinking about how the light left Barley’s dark eyes when the hound gave a last, shuddering exhale under his own hands. He pleaded with her, promising he’d do anything for her for the whole summer. He’d earn her help. That did it.

So, he cut grass and tore out all the kudzu and privet that had consumed Aunt Rinner’s saggy back porch. He worked every Saturday, even after sophomore year started. When October brought an onslaught of leaves for him to battle and she still hadn’t taught him a lick, Martin did his own research and found something just plausible enough to be worth a shot. It was on a website with 8-bit border graphics of dragons, and he’d had to use the internet to translate it, but he wouldn’t tell her all that. Instead, he proclaimed that he’d take his chances to make things right because he was almost out of time. Then he told her about a story he’d read online that outlined a way to slip into the ranks of the Hunt on Halloween.

“Online! Anonymous imposters don’t have moral authority to help stupid boys,” she’d said. “Fool child thinks he can gallivant up to the Fae’s vanguard…some old world nincompoop…the very night they call up the dead…Papaw will be in fits!” She’d grumbled, pacing around her kitchen while Martin held his breath. Aunt Rinner gave in. “I’ll teach you so I can sleep at night. And so, when I’m gone, they won’t toss me out the pearly gates. Do what I say, no improvising. And you can’t tell your mama. If she asks if I had a hand in this, I’ll deny it.”

“Yes, ma’am. Whatever you say.” Anything to bring Barley home. “I’ll do what you say, exactly.”  Aunt Rinner’s way was more rigorous than the Welsh ritual on the clunky website.

“You understand that nothing about this is safe, boy?” she’d asked. “The Hunt has no compunction; they might could kill you just for looking as they pass. And here you’re meaning to address one. Hoo-boy! Still, that’ll surprise ‘em. They might not kill you straight off.” Finally, when she believed he was serious and properly scared out of his mind, Aunt Rinner told Martin about a pattern in the landscape.

“It’s a map, like the electrical transmission lines that run out from that TVA dam over’n Norris,” she said. There were paths of power, ones that had been here long before the State of Franklin became Tennessee, and many of them were still visible, marked with the occasional milky quartz embedded in the stone walls of the oldest farms. His best chance was to wait where two strong lines crossed. “That’s where the horde is most likely to be the at the turning of All Soul’s Day, when they’ll call up a fresh pack. Have this fairy cross ready. The faster you flash the silver, the likelier you are to wake up in your own bed.”

~~~

The moon was still high, casting enough light for Martin to see down the gravel drive and out onto Tazewell Pike. It was nearly two miles to where the turnpike crossed the ley line. He’d have to jog.

Winded after the first mile and a half, Martin trudged along the road’s rough shoulder worrying over how he’d get the Huntmaster’s attention. He should play it cool, like he was a guy who regularly talked with ghostly immortals—Dude! Wanna trade that old dog there for this silver? Maybe—Pardon me? I’d like my dog back, please. I’m willing to bargain for him…God, no. Aunt Rinner said sounding needy would get him killed on the spot. He should stick to the script they’d rehearsed even though the language was weird.

He was still practicing his tone when a low stone wall came into view with a few crystals glinting each time moonlight flooded down through the rushing clouds. He zipped his gray hoodie up to the tender hollow of his neck. The sky had been clear when he started out, but now the air was churning up leaves and litter with increasing speed and the temperature had dropped significantly. November was drawing closer by the second.

He dropped his pack against the stone wall and took out two plastic bags bulging with white and red powder. Holding one in each hand he thought back over the steps. He made a small opening in each bag and sketched the concentric circles of salt and sand like he’d practiced on Aunt Rinner’s kitchen floor. Now Martin stepped into the center of perfect triple circles of alternating sea salt and red clay ground into fine sand. He placed a piece of dirty quartz the size of hen’s eggs at the ordinal points and closed his eyes. This was the hard part, and the hardest to believe. Aunt Rinner insisted he had to keep his eyes closed and wait. The procession could only be seen if a person knew when to look. And because he didn’t have second sight like Aunt Rinner, the only way for Martin to do this was to peer through the donut-shaped rock, a hagstone. He had to wait until he heard the Huntsman’s horn.

“There’s nothing like that sound,” she’d said. “A tone to pour strength into limbs long resting and fill up lungs gone still. That’s how my Papaw described it, though I can’t say for certain because I ain’t never been foolish enough to go to the crossing on the eve of All Souls to listen. And you shouldn’t go either.” Aunt Rinner hated Martin’s plan right up until their final run though yesterday.

The wind picked up. Martin tried not to shuffle his feet. With his eyes closed it was hard to tell if the sounds on the wind came from the approaching hunt or neighbors’ dogs. Martin shoved his hands deep into his jeans, one hand on the hagstone and the other on the cold silver of the fairy cross he’d bought online. A breath of warm air brushed his face, smelling of old hay and honeyed grain. He squeezed his eyelids together and was trying not to imagine a ghost horse when a low, clear tone entered his ears and charted a path through each of his million nerve endings with spectacular force. The sound rattled within his body for ages before his brain made sense of it and directed his hands to move.

Martin forced his right eye open and looked through the hole in the polished agate. A pack of hounds milled around him. Muzzles to the ground and tails curled aloft, they were silent but for the valves of their nostrils working the night air. He knew that posture. They were on a trail but seemed confused by their quarry. A soft whine that pulled his heart out of rhythm for a beat came from the east ordinal point of his circle. He scanned the pack through the rock and saw a dog with a glossy red and white coat, floppy black ears, and slim tail tipped in white like a flag of hope in the dark—it sure looked like Barley. But Barley as he’d been in his prime before Dad shipped out for that long tour the summer Martin was twelve and Barley three, both boys into anything that smelled like adventure.

“That one wants something of you, boy,” came a clear voice from over his left shoulder. He spun to face an enormous horse pawing at the ground just beyond his outermost sand ring. The horse’s coat was not the black of a starless sky as he’d been told to expect, but a kaleidoscope of gray tones shifting like rushing clouds. The beast snorted and nodded its head at him, its large eyes shining cold with moonlight. Martin swallowed hard. A laugh drew his attention higher, and Martin was relieved to realize the speaker was not the horse.

“And it seems Skepnair likes you.” The rider who spoke was dressed in layers of cloth that appeared to be bound to the body with strips of leather, and a sword hung at the hip with a soft sheen of polished bone. “She says you smell like a boy with apples in his pockets. Are you a treat tonight, child? Or perhaps a trick?” the rider asked pushing the cowl off their head. The Huntsman was not at all what Aunt Rinner had described. Here sat a woman of indeterminate age with a regal face the color of last year’s oak leaves. She peered down her sharp nose at Martin, examining him with ancient eyes that didn’t match her appearance. She looked as hungry as the hounds. He didn’t care to be eaten, but he could think of worse ways to die than being consumed by this terrible, beautiful woman. Her dark hair was woven into complicated knots with bits of bone, feathers, and small glinting objects on sinewy cords. Oh, God. He was gonna die. With a gasp Martin pulled out the fairy cross and held it out, praying it wasn’t too late. Her rough laugh came again.

“Ah, you’ve come to barter! And why, pray tell, does an infant think he can treat with a scout of the Hunt?” Her look felt like a scalding hand on his heart and the urge to cower was strong.

“You’re not the Huntsman?” Martin asked before his brain caught up. He snapped his mouth closed. He wasn’t supposed to question. Her laugh changed from disdain to something resembling mirth.

“You could not even speak if I were. No, child, I am Packmaster. I keep the hounds for my Lord. I like the bit of shiny though…”

“Ma’am, it’s yours for that dog.” Martin nodded toward the hound still worrying the eastern edge of the circle.

“Such manners remain in these hills?” Her smile was a knife. “Foolish to beg the Hunt so. Lose a hound for a bit of silver?” the rider scoffed, and the great horse stomped her hoof as if also offended. “Still, I’ve ridden long and far since one dared to ask a boon, much less a child.”

“Ma’am, I know you ride this night to gather the pack. What harm to let one go when you have so many?” Martin felt her stare bore into him as if she were sifting for a truth he wouldn’t speak. Long minutes seemed to stretch before she spoke.

“Are you certain it’s a hound you’re after?”

Martin’s thoughts scrambled, what could that mean? Perhaps he’d asked wrong? Aunt Rinner said to be cautious of each word.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m here for the dog my father gave me. The one I named Barley and raised to hunt rabbit. Who came to my call until he was killed three moon turns ago.” There. That sounded specific, formal, and true. Exactly as he’d been taught. The horse huffed at him.

“Hmmph, indeed. Skepnair thinks you should be given a chance—she’s determined to have the treat she smells about you. How’s that for your bargain, boy, the shiny and an apple for one of my hounds?”

“Yes, ma’am!” The threat of imminent death released Martin from its viselike grip.

“We have a bargain,” she said with solemnity, though her eyes shone as if with delight. “A shame you didn’t wait to hear the subordinate terms, but the young so rarely do.” A wicked smile lit her face and her gloved hand brushed against the pommel of her blade.

Count to ten before agreeing to anything! Aunt Rinner’s last admonition rushed to mind too late. Martin nodded, not able to speak past the great lump that had formed in his throat.

“The hound can choose to leave the pack and go with you, or not. You must walk away, and not look back with that silly stone until you cross your own threshold. Oh, and the shiny and the apple must be given first as you initiated the bargain.”

“Agreed.” What choice did he have?

He held the fairy cross out with his palm stretched taut to keep his flesh from touching hers. He’d never play ball again if her touch took that strength, as Aunt Rinner warned it could.

“Precious, living boy,” she said leaning down and plucking the silver from his hand. The surrounding air was painfully cold, but she did not touch him. “Someone taught you the old ways…it’s a shame I cannot draft you this night.”

Her eyes gleamed with a sudden blue fire that drew Martin a step closer. Those bright orbs became windows through which he saw images of soldiers across time stepping from their fallen bodies to clasp the proffered arms of riders like the one before him. The scenes changed from one blink to the next, a spectral carousel.

“It would be a delight to see if you ride the Hunt as well as your kin do. Alas, my charge is the pack alone.” Her grin had Martin imagining her without her skin and laid out in a deep dirt hole.

Wait, what?

He shuffled back to the center of the circle. That didn’t make any sense. Aunt Rinner hadn’t said anything about an old family member taken by the Hunt. This was a distraction, meant to lure him away from his goal. The rider wanted him to fail but was bound to their terms; she was trying to trick him, just as his aunt warned. Martin mentally kicked himself.

“Tick, tock, boy—the veil thickens. A bargain is underway, we are obliged to see it through. Where is the treat for Skepnair? Perhaps you ate it?”

Martin wracked his brain for a solution to getting the apple from his bag without leaving the protection of the circles.

“You don’t want to know what Skepnair does when disappointed…” Though the rider sounded like she’d be interested in seeing the horse pound him into the dirt. “An apple from the stomach is as good as one in the hand; either way she’ll get her treat.” Now she was trying to scare him into making a mistake. But what mistake?

 Fuck it.

He stepped out of the circles and was wrapped in a cold so immediate he fell to the ground; the hagstone fell away and he was alone. A tongue swiped across his cheek with an icy burn, Barley—he hoped. On his hands and knees, Martin felt for the rock and then forced himself to stand. He stumbled to his bag and pulled out the apple. There was a snuffling at his side, and he looked through the hole to see the ghost dog plunging his nose deep into the bag the same way he used to do every day after school, looking for remnants of Martin’s lunch. The hound came up with the carrots he’d packed. The dog dropped them the ground and then burrowed back into the bag pulling a half-eaten peppermint stick covered in lint. Martin shoved two carrots and the old candy in his back pocket. Teeth rattling and fingers locked on the stone at his eye, he approached Skepnair and held out the apple with his left hand as flat as he could. It was harder than it had been with the cross. The horse’s muzzle drew close and she daintily took the apple. Her breath felt surprisingly warm against his skin.

“Would you care for this too, my lady?” Martin held out a carrot to the great horse, deciding to address the horse with as formality as he had her rider. Skepnair huffed an excited breath, stretched her long neck toward him and snatched the carrot. When he offered her a second, Skepnair closed her eyes and exhaled a fragrant blessing before returning to chomp the second carrot and then the peppermint stick with delight that Martin recognized. It was like when he’d scored two king-size candy bars in eighth grade, the last year he’d gone trick-or-treating with friends in a rich neighborhood.

“You are a surprise.” The rider’s tone was almost kind. “Clever the boy that bears a threefold gift. Well played.”

Martin looked up, not understanding, but saw a wry smile on her elegant face. The fairy cross he’d given shone against her temple.

“You’ve won a more powerful ally than you know,” she said.

The horse whinnied.

“For Skepnair’s grace I will undo the charm that wraps the tri-color binding him to me, though you did not ask it. Still, he must choose to follow.” A horn blasted across the hills and the dogs came to attention and began to bark and bay. “Time’s up, child.” The Packmaster pulled her cowl up hiding her mass of hair and treasures. “Take your prize and don’t look for the Hunt again until we look for you.” The horse began to prance in place. “Yes, yes,” she soothed, patting the beast’s neck. “She insists I remind you to put the stone away. Do not look back until you are home.”

“Yes, ma’am. Th—” he stopped before he finished the rote words that had been drilled into him since he could talk. The Packmaster’s eyes sparked with that blue fire again as if she knew how close he’d been to messing up everything. That had been Aunt Rinner’s first lesson: do not thank the Fae or any bargain is void. Martin shut his eyes and shoved the hagstone deep into his pocket. He was so close to success, if he could just shut up.

He nodded a blind bow and heard the rider’s distinctive chuckle. Then the icy wind swirled about him, and he held his breath until the air was quiet.

Eyes closed, Martin turned the way he thought was right and staggered about until he felt the wall. He shouldered the backpack and when his feet found the asphalt, he peeked to make sure he was turned toward home.

“You ready to go home, boy?”

The Packmaster hadn’t said he couldn’t use his voice. He stood for a moment straining to hear dog breath behind him. Had she lied to him? Aunt Rinner said Fae bargains are forever, but what did she really know? She’d never struck one herself. Martin whistled, two short tones and a long rising note, the one he’d used to call Barley since the foxhound was a wrinkly pup. There—Martin heard the click of nails on the hard surface of the road behind him. Martin’s heart leapt, but he caught himself before he instinctively turned with his hand reaching for Barley’s velvet-soft head. He made himself start walking.

As he made his way, Martin found himself counting steps. It reminded him of counting down the days of each of dad’s deployments on the kitchen chalkboard with mom when he was little. It was still a comforting habit, but not one that got any easier with age. He passed the mailbox shaped like a pig. One mile home but it felt like ten, the urge to turn and look growing with each step. He shoved his hands in his pocket and felt the stone. He wasn’t supposed to look back with the stone, did that mean he couldn’t look with just his own two eyes? He wouldn’t risk it. Martin stopped, listening.

He’d always been the follower, not the leader of their two-pack, scanning for the tip of Barley’s tail waving like a flag to show the best route wherever they went. Now he could hear dogs raising a ruckus in the distance up the valley but nothing behind. He was about to turn when there was a sound, a soft snuffle like a dog deciding if something was worth tasting. There came a bright crack behind him followed by few quieter crunches. Typical.

“Hey! No eating on walks!” His cheeks were tight with the smile he couldn’t stop. “I promise you can have anything you want when we get home.”

He shouldn’t doubt Barley. Martin was pretty sure this whole mission would have failed if he hadn’t followed the hound’s clue to offer the carrots and old piece of peppermint as well as the apple. Watch for tricks Aunt Rinner had said, especially those wrapped up as treats. He wondered what she’d make of the rider’s words about giving three gifts?

A half mile to go, time to figure out what to tell Mom. Probably not the truth. She’d call it bullshit and accuse him of getting a new dog as young as Barley looked now. But Dad would believe him, probably. The mounds of daylilies that guarded their driveway were just ahead waving their thin, desiccated leaves in a silent breeze. Then a deeper chill travelled down the road and seeped under his clothes. Martin palmed the hagstone in his pocket, certain he was no longer alone with his dog. He wouldn’t look back toward Barley and break the bargain, but he had to see. Maybe the Packmaster changed her mind.

He squeezed his eyelids shut and took a deep breath. The stone was warm against his face. Martin opened his right eye and held his tongue between his teeth. The daylilies looked the same, so did the mailbox. The light coming from the house was yellow with welcome glinting through the branches. Nothing. He just had to cross the threshold, and they’d be safe.

Martin stepped off the road and the driveway gravel crunched under his shoes obscuring the sound of lighter paws. He was on their land now. What was the threshold, exactly? Did he have to cross the front door? He was practically at the fence line that attempted to keep the deer out of Mom’s garden. Surely this was far enough.

“Hey, boy—” he said, starting to turn.

You want to lose him again?

Martin froze. As soon as the words registered in his brain they were gone again. It felt like…

“D-dad?” he stumbled, but caught himself on the gate and listened. “You home?”

Only the oaks murmured in reply, their dry, leafy crowns tormented by the wind. Another trick?

Martin pushed on through the gate and climbed to the top porch step, collapsing as the wave of the last hour swamped him. Now that he was home, it was almost too much. If he didn’t look, he couldn’t be disappointed.

“Barley? Are you there, boy?” he whispered. And then, nails on wooden planks, the rasp of a flat tongue on his cheek, velvet ears under his hand. He peeked and saw himself reflected in the dark eyes luminous with life. Martin trembled as he stroked the dog’s impossibly young, lithe body. Impossible. Real.

The hound lifted his head and turned back toward the garden, nostrils working hard. A soft whine grew into a howl. Martin strained to see what had the dog riled up. Remembering the stone in his pocket, he leaned back, digging it out of his jeans to look. Something moved out from the trees. At first Martin thought it was fog rolling in from the adjacent cornfield, but it gathered into a column before settling into a human form. The Packmaster?

“We had a deal,” he hollered. Martin wrapped his left arm around Barley’s shoulders and pulled the dog’s body tightly against his side. “I followed the rules. No take backs!”

The figure moved to the garden gate and stopped. A piercing whistle sounded that made Martin’s back teeth ache. Barley’s ears twitched, and he started to pant. Then another whistle, this one two short tones followed by a long, rising note. Barley bolted for the gate.

“No!” Martin leapt after him but tripped down the steps and the hagstone flew from his hand. He could see Barley at the fence, his tail wagging. “Please!” Scrambling in the grass for the rock, he remembered Aunt Rinner admonishing him never to beg the Fae. He didn’t care. “You can’t take him back! Please. I need him.” Where was that stupid stone?

The agate, wet with dew, glinted in the porch light. Martin plucked it up and pressed it to his face so hard it hurt. Martin’s breath caught in a choking sob. The shadow of a figure Martin would know anywhere looked up at him from where it crouched, adjusting a silver charm to the collar around Barley’s neck.

That’ll keep him safe for a while.

The words rang clear in Martin’s head. The figure straightened, it’s countenance gentle and achingly familiar. Dad.

He’s a good dog. Try to keep him out of the road though.

Martin hadn’t known. He thought of Mom lying on the couch, eyes swollen like she’d been crying. How could he have not known? Oh, God, no.

You’ll be alright.

A horn sounded long and low, and Martin heard a pack of far-off dogs carrying the night in their lungs. The sight stone in Martin’s hand grew slippery with tears. He needed to see, dammit!

Go hug your mother, son.

A gust of wind rushed up the drive and ushered the specter of Martin’s father away. The oaks shook their boughs in salute. Barley bayed a lament, the silver charm shimmering with the vibrations of his howl.

END