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The woman smiles.

Oh, fuck.

Mercy falls into her arms.

They shouldn’t be able to hold each other. I can see the field through both of them.

But somehow… they do.

Mercy buries her face against her mother’s shoulder, and the sound that comes out of her doesn’t belong to the woman who survived beneath Ward Farm for two hundred and thirty-five years.

It belongs to the daughter she was before any of this happened.

Around them, the dead begin to disappear.

One by one.

Some smiling.

Some crying.

Some simply closing their eyes.

And with every soul that leaves, the monster shrinks.

Smaller.

Smaller.

Until there is nothing left towering over Ward Farm.

Only a knot of black roots pulsing at the bottom of the hole.

THUMP.

I walk toward it.

Ezra stays beside me.

So do Rhett and Malakai.

No one grabs me.

No one tells me what to do.

No one tries to make the choice for me.

Good.

I kneel at the edge of the hole.

THUMP.

The knot pulses again.

Tiny now.

Pathetic.