Ten Masks of Willowmere: The Raven's Bargain

Cal returns to Willowmere for a second summer to find the wells running dry, a raven at his window offering trades, and a hall hidden beneath the forest where the lost masks have been guarded by someone who has been standing in the dark for a hundred and six years.

Callan Doyle had been back at Nan Ivy's farmhouse for exactly one hour before he was up the attic ladder, and this time nobody hollered at him for it.

A whole year had gone by since the summer Willowmere Forest turned grey. The trees were green again now -- so green it was almost showing off -- and from the attic's round window Cal could see all the way down the hill: Nan's garden, the fence, the village roofs, and the neat staked rows of young willows that Corvin Ashgrave had planted along the tree line and tended like they were his own children. Cal was twelve now. He was also, officially, keeper-in-training of Willowmere, which so far had mostly meant chores, lessons, and Nan Ivy saying things like 'again, and slower this time.'

'Third step still bites,' Nan called up from the kitchen, not even pretending she didn't know where he'd gone.

'I remember,' Cal called back, and grinned, because he did. Best summer of my life, he thought, which was a strange thing to think about a summer that had nearly ended the forest. Right then. Let's see what this one wants.