Squinting through the rain, he saw that the white-faced stranger had stopped at a point midway between their camp and the meadow edge. The figure stooped down onto its haunches. Its hands were busy, but Jake was too far away to see what it was doing.He marched on.A lisping cry, carried by the gale, reached his ears—‘Risssssse.’Jake shivered. There was something horribly eerie in the sight of the woman crouching on the ground. A woman, yes, her haggard face hideous even at this distance. But it wasn’t her ugliness or even that brittle voice repeating the same word over and over—Risssssse—that made Jake shudder. It was the apron tied around her withered body. A red-smeared apron that reminded him of the one worn by the lady butcher from Cravenmouth.He remembered what his father had said: They would lure orphan children to the old house with promises of food and shelter. They pretended to be kindly spinster women, but after a few weeks of fattening the kids up … This was one of the Crowden sisters, Jake knew it.
