The Light-Bearer's Daughter by O.R. Melling

threes, they skimmed over the wet ground on their flat webbed feet, like skaters on a pond.
    The moment Dana realized they were deserting her, she panicked. She had no idea where she was. The night was growing darker. She didn’t want to be left alone.
    “Wait!” she called. “Wait a minute!”
    As she hurried to catch up with them, they ran away from her, scattering like sheep on the road.
    “Come back!” she shouted, chasing after them. “I won’t fight! I promise!”
    She had almost reached one of them and was about to grab him, when he darted away in a last-minute sprint. They were all quick and skittish, squealing like piglets if she got too near. One or two stopped to stick out their tongues and thumb their noses. Others cut capers, twirling around like whirligig beetles in a bog puddle.
    For a moment Dana thought she was back at home with her gang of boys. Did they really think they were better than her?
    “Oh yeah?” she yelled at them. “I’ll get you! You’ll see!”
    Picking out the smallest in the bunch, she tore after him.
    “Run, Bird, run!” the others screeched.
    But he hadn’t a hope. Dana soon caught up with him.
    “You’re IT!” she roared in triumph as she grabbed him.
    Whooping with laughter, Bird broke away and sped after the next target.
    The chase was on. A wild game of tag on the windy bog. Leaping over hummocks of deergrass and heather. Jumping across hollows steeped in brown water. Splashing through pools choked with sphagnum moss. The soft ground or bogach that gave the land its name squelched underfoot and splattered them with muck.
    Laughing hysterically, shrieking with the rest, Dana was utterly caught up in the fun. How wonderful it was to run and play! Not to have worries and responsibilities. Just to be a kid again. It was as if she were playing outside on her street. Sometimes as she ran among them, she didn’t see the boggles. They were Liam and Conor and Eoin.
    She stopped to catch her breath, resting her hands on her knees. In that moment she looked around her, dazed.
    “What’s going on?” she said, bewildered. “Where am I?”
    “You’re home!” came a chorus of cries.
    “Don’t be silly!” she argued, though her thoughts were slow and muddied. “I don’t … live … here!”
    Several boggles came to tug at her arms.
    “You does!” they cried together. “You does live here!”
    Dana frowned. That didn’t sound right. And something niggled at the back of her mind. Something important that she couldn’t recall. Wasn’t it dangerous to play outside in the dark? Shouldn’t she tell Gabe?
    “Gets back in the game!” one of them shouted.
    “The fun! The game!” the others urged.
    They were all clamoring around her now and she couldn’t think straight with the noise.
    “Oh yeah. The game,” she said at last. It seemed such a relief to say it. “What are we playin’?”
    “Leap frog!” someone announced, and they all cheered wildly.
    Dana’s long legs made her the quickest and the best. She flew over the small huddled bodies lined higgledypiggedly over the ground. Her running shoes were soaked, her clothes dripping with mud, but she didn’t care. When the boggles declared her the winner, she punched the air with glee.
    “They forgets real fast,” one remarked to another.
    Dana overheard and felt a twinge of foreboding. In the back of her mind, she knew something was wrong. So what . If she was in trouble, she would face the music later. Right now, she wanted to play.
    One of the boggles scrambled onto a bank of cut turf.
    “I’s the King of the Castle!” he proclaimed.
    Dana jumped up beside him and knocked him down.
    “And I’s the Dirty Rascal!”
    The games continued till Dana looked pale and haunted. Her lips were blue, her teeth chattered, and she was starving, yet she didn’t think to change into dry clothes or to eat any of her food. Her knapsack hung forgotten on her back, as drenched and bedraggled as the rest of her.
    The