Lone Star Mountain porcelain knife

"take from mother?" muskrat muttered as they traveled fierce-faced and fraught with energy from the shadowland to the lone mountain.

snatching a child hungry and alone was one thing. as she had no ill designs upon them, muskrat considered her intervention to be far more merciful than the usual fates met by lost young.

but to take a child directly; she was not certain she wanted that. yet if the woman was not well, maybe it must be done after all.

her eyes searched for the figures as they slowed; the citrus sheen narrowed, pinpointing.

there was moonlight now, but she did not see movement, and prowled forward into a shaft of creamy glow.