The pack came by twos and threes, on four-wheelers, on motorcycles, or driving various four-wheel-drive cars. Tag came on his backhoe.

They retrieved the invaders’ bodies first. Those went into Charles’s truck, all six of them, while Hester’s body was removed to the cabin. By the time they’d finished with that—the whole pack was present.

Charles put Leah in charge of figuring out how to get the four-wheelers, now grown into the forest, out, without leaving obvious signs that magic had been worked there. It was obviously the most difficult job and, to his surprise, she tackled it with enthusiasm.

He’d flattered her, he realized, in front of the pack....