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were silent for a long time
after that. Occasionally Jenna dared a glance back at their dead
following. She kept her eyes low, hoping to avoid any ghostly
gazes. The light was so dim that she saw almost nothing, but she
never doubted that the whole procession was still behind
them.
    They were halfway through their
ten-mile journey when the soldiers came.
    At first the
sounds were very faint, barely audible over the creaking of the
branches: the distant jingle of harness, the puff of hooves through the snow. When
Jenna finally made sense of what she was hearing, she froze, and
pulled Arica to a stop. The girls listened, horrified, as the
sounds grew unmistakable.
    “They’re coming,” Arica whispered,
her face a frightened mask. “We have to put out the
lantern!”
    “We can’t! It’s the only thing
keeping the ghosts away!”
    “Well, then what
do you suggest?”
    “Maybe...” A shout from behind cut
into her thoughts: they had been spotted. The jingle of harness
grew louder.
    Jenna tried to focus. “If we go
into the trees...” She peered into the black wall of woods beside
the road. “You can’t take horses through...”
    “So? They’ll dismount, and then
they’ll catch us.”
    “We have snowshoes...”
    “I’m sure they do,
too.”
    A thought struck. “Would they know
about the ghosts?”
    “I... wouldn’t think so,” Arica
said.
    The idea grew, sparks kindling
flames in Jenna’s mind. “If they were to chase us through the
woods,” she said, “they’d have to stop and put on their
snowshoes.”
    There was a brief silence. “Yes,”
Arica said. “I imagine they would.”
    Jenna chanced a look back. Outside
the circle of light, the ghosts swirled and wavered like mist. If
one didn’t know they were there, one might not see them at all. “Do
you see a lantern back there?” she said.
    “No.” Arica’s voice was strangely
cheerful. “No, I don’t believe I do.”
    They exchanged looks, then started
walking again, much more slowly.
    The wait was nerve-wracking, but
necessary: they could give the soldiers no chance to realize their
danger. Arica was as tense as a bowstring, clearly poised to run.
Jenna felt both sick and excited.
    At last, in a blur of snow-muffled
hoofbeats, the riders tore around the bend. “Go!” Jenna shouted,
and the girls plunged into the pitch-black woods.
    The lantern swung wildly, sending
crazed arcs of light around them as they wove between the trees.
Behind them, Jenna heard the riders wheeling to a stop. She heard
curses, then shouts, then the cocking of guns.
    She knew the very second the
soldiers saw the dead. The shouts abruptly ceased, giving way to
frantic orders and then to a storm of gunfire. Suddenly hoofbeats
rose and faded: panicked horses, leaving their riders
behind.
    At last, the gunfire gave way to
clicks as chamber after chamber ran out of ammunition. Then came
screams—then moans—then silence.
    Jenna tried to peer back through
the darkness towards the road. She could see nothing beyond the
circle of feeble light. She supposed that was a blessing. “I almost
feel sorry for them,” she said. “If I didn’t know they were coming
to kill us...”
    Arica didn’t answer. Turning, Jenna
saw that the Northerner was looking the other way, deeper into the
woods. Her face was very still.
    Jenna felt a chill. “What’s wrong?”
she said. “What do you see?”
    Arica pointed.
    At the very edge of the dwindling
light stood a multitude of the risen dead. As Jenna watched, more
filled in around the circle, until the girls were completely
surrounded.
    “No,” Jenna groaned. How could
there be so many?
    “There must have been a battle
here,” Arica said softly. Her face was still blank.
    “I don’t know of one,” Jenna said,
but she knew that didn’t necessarily mean anything. The war had
been a bloody, chaotic time, and thousands of people had been
reported missing and never found. “There might be another mass
grave somewhere nearby,” she