Excerpt from “The Conductors”

“The wind and soil, the storms and the calm,” they said together, repeating the words their mother had sung to them. “The magic is the world and it moves through us. There are words and rhyme and —”

Hetty’s words cut off with a cry as the collar turned iron hot against her skin.

“What’s wrong?” Esther crouched next to her. “You didn’t do any magic!”

“Something else,” Hetty spat. “Words have magic!”

“Hetty,” Esther said, and what else Esther had to say was lost as the pain reached the point where Hetty couldn’t breathe. This was just like what happened in the kitchen — but to make matters worse, now it was happening in front of Esther. Esther had never seen her like this. Never saw her crouched over in pain and unable to do more than let it run over her like rain. Hetty had always tried to keep this from her sister, to protect her like Mama had made her swear to. She was failing. Failing the only thing she could do in this terribly cruel world.

“Stop,” Hetty said, as she grasped at the collar, pulling uselessly against it, her sewing needle prickling against her skin. “Stop!”

Hetty kept pulling and pulling, and then the pain was gone.

The metal cooled and Hetty’s hands fell away . . . and so did the silver collar.

It fell into the dirt. Perfect twin halves spotted with blood.

If it had been a snake, they couldn’t have moved away faster.

“What did you do?” Esther whispered. “Was that magic?”

“Don’t know.” Hetty prodded the closest half to her with her sewing needle. It didn’t spark. No bells rang. “Don’t care. Did it glow when it came off?” Esther shook her head. “Then it’s dead. We have time. They can’t use it to follow us.”

Esther swallowed hard, but her voice didn’t tremble. “Where?”

“North.” Hetty clawed at the packed dirt. “We follow the stars.”

“That’s not a place,” Esther said rather seriously. “That’s a direction.”

Hetty almost laughed. She could always count on her little sister to find humor in the most terrible of times.

“It’s not. I don’t know where I want to go. I just know we can’t stay here.”

“I know a place,” Esther said. “I heard it healing some sick folks in the next farm over. They were talking bad about it, so that means it’s a good place for people like us.”

“Where’s that?” “Philadelphia.”

“I don’t know where that is,” Hetty said as she buried the collar. “But let’s find out.”