"For Christ's... no, not knitted booties. Chain-sandwiched-between-thick-leather booties. What in good hell's use would knitted booties be?"

The two siblings exchanged a look of grim comprehension over the breakfast table when the butler laid the broadsheet in front of them. The Morning Post's headline was painfully familiar to them now. In stark black and white, the proclamation that yet another child had gone missing on the shores of Lake Conmere drove away any hint of an appetite the two of them might have had.

I cross into the open fields that border the woods, stumbling in the black furrowed mud that has been harvested of all it can give. Crows circle overhead and caw their disappointment at this paltry season, black tatters cast about in blustery winds.