Sorrow's Knot - Hardcover

Something was resting in the nest of shadows under the cornstalk, something stirring as Cricket's hand came near. Something gawk-stretched and ugly as a new-hatched bird with no feathers and skin over its eyes. Something that moved subtly, like the earth moving above something buried. Something struggling and starving.

Cricket reached backward, fumbling toward the shadow-cage, and the dark thing opened its dark mouth like a baby bird, like a snake. It opened so wide that if it had had a jaw, its jaw would have broken. Suddenly it was all mouth, and it was reaching-

There was one heartbeat in which Otter couldn't move. She was still hiccupping, though her heart had nearly stopped with horror. Kestrel shouted: "Cricket!"

Cricket grinned up at Kestrel, groping unknowing toward the shadow - and Otter dove to save him. Anyone in the pinch would have counted her as a child. But it never occurred to her that most people would have dived the other way.

"Ware!" shouted Kestrel.

Cricket's smile froze, his head whipped toward the warning. He was halfway to his feet by the time Otter hit him. She'd meant to knock him sideways, but because he was twisting she hit him wrong. He fell full backward, into the corn.

Onto the dead thing.