Aderyn holds her daughter’s shoulders, studying Mairwen for a long moment, until Mairwen licks her lips and her fingers twist into her skirt. Aderyn says, “But John is not the first saint to run back out of the forest, and this is new.”
“So it must be something else. Something has changed! Don’t we need to know what? Why can’t I go inside? I’m strong. I’m fast. I—I’m not as strong and fast as Rhun, but I’m cunning.” Mair knows she’s pleading with her mother. Aderyn draws her toward the hearth, where they kneel together on the wide, dark stone.
“You cannot go inside, little bird. Of all people. Not because you’re a girl, but because of the blood in your veins. I know you long for the forest. I know it calls you. But answering is not worth the peril. Your heart would be so much at risk.”
Mairwen sinks, putting her cheek to her mother’s thigh. She closes her eyes and listens—listens deeply—to the pitter-patter of her heart, quick and loud. Aderyn strokes the brambling curls as best one can. “Isn’t it worth the risk?” Mairwen whispers.
“You’re a Grace witch, not a saint. I’ve told you, we go inside and we do not return. Our hearts are tied to that Bone Tree, just as the heart of the youngest Grace sister was. Wait until you have lived a full life.”
“Rhun hasn’t.”
“That is part of the sacrifice.”
Making a fist in her mother’s skirt, Mairwen says, “It is hard enough to think of Rhun dying if it gives us the seven years we’re owed. But if it is only three years again? Or less? We cannot be sure his run will be enough, if we don’t know what changed.”
Her mother continues to pet Mair’s head. “Have faith, and love, little bird. In the bargain, in our traditions. One cycle out of pace with the rest does not mean it all is worthless. Youarestrong, Mairwen, and what you do means something to this town. Show them how to be, how you can lead them after me. Not only for Three Graces, but for Rhun Sayer. Show him you will be strong when he runs.”
“I love him. Will that be enough to save him?” Mair clutches her mother’s knees, for how can she say such a thing when her mother lost her lover to the forest seventeen years ago?
But Aderyn teases at Mair’s curls and says, “That boy loves widely and well. If love can protect anybody, it will protect Rhun Sayer.”
“Too widely?” Mairwen unbends, panicked. “Too well?”
“Little bird, I’m not sure there is any such thing.”
•••
HAF LEWIS AND HER SISTERBree arrive to bake for the bonfire that night, sending Aderyn on her way to check in with Rhos and the baby, back at the Priddy house. Mair is glad to take her frustration out on dough, and her bread comes out tough.
Haf and her fifteen-year-old sister keep up a dialogue between them, enough the kitchen doesn’t overwhelm with tension; they tease each other and compete to make the finest pinched pastries. Their fingers move fast, and their smiles match. The girls look everything of sisters, smooth black hair and round faces, bright eyes, though Bree’s are a surprising green and her skin a rosy tan, evidence of three generations the Lewises have lived and married in Three Graces.
When Bree’s best friend, Emma Parry, rushes in to drop off a bowl of sweet meat and grab more elderflower honey for the Pugh sisters, she knocks into Mair hard enough Mair retaliates by throwing a handful of flour and snaps, “Watch yourself!”
The powder scatters in Emma’s blond hair, and she purses her lips, putting fists on her slight hips. “You should find a chance to go by the square, Mairwen,” Emma says with false kindness. “The boys are building their bonfire, and I think Arthur Couch might be having a better time of it than Rhun Sayer.”
“Oh,” Bree says, “you should bless them, Mair, you should.”
“She’s probablyblessedRhun Sayer enough,” Emma adds with a giggle.
Bree gasps, but Mairwen ignores it, striding to the pot on the fire to slop her spoon through the reducing gooseberry sauce. Emma says, “I mean...”
“I know what you mean,” Mair says coldly. Truthfully, she likes being accused of such things. It’s good for Rhun’s reputation.
The girl dashes out of the cottage and Haf says, “She’s only excited.”
Mair’s hand stills the spoon in the green sauce. A few more minutes will be enough. She needs to finish rolling out the dough. Or she can leave this to burn, to turn to sticky, ruined innards, and go back out to the pasture, be alone where she can’t foul the town’s customs with her thorns. This is too important, isn’t it, to push at until it breaks?
She turns to face Haf and her sister, who stand beside the worn kitchen table with a pile of perfectly shaped pastries ready to be carried to the Priddy ovens. Bree’s chin is down, her small fingers pinching dough around a spoonful of the candied venison Emma just left. Bree looks up at Mairwen from beneath her black brows, then glances quickly down again, biting her lip.
Mairwen hefts the pot of gooseberries off the fire and sets it on the hearth to cool. The stone is old and blue-gray, a single heavy boulder carved rectangular like an old pagan standing stone tipped onto its side. Possibly that is exactly its origin. She wipes her hands on her apron. “Do you think all this preparation matters? Shouldn’t we be doing something else? Trying to find out what caused the change? What if it’s something we all did?”
Haf tilts her head to consider. Not a wisp of her braided crown slips out of place. Afternoon sunlight streams through the western windows, highlighting clusters of drying herbs that dangle from the rafters, dull green and purple and yellow, and the limewashed walls are as bright as ever. It smells of tangy gooseberries and flour, fire and hot stone. Haf finally says, “Don’t we have to go on with the bargain no matter what caused this change? I’ve never been sick in my life, nor lost a little brother or sister as a babe.”
Bree’s fingers twitch, ruining the arc of her pastry. Her braids are messy, falling to pieces, because for some unknowable younger sister’s reason, she won’t let Haf do the braiding for her. “Our grandma used to tell us stories about plague when we were bad,” she says. “That your—your skin rots off and you get boils that weep blood until you cough up your own insides. She said if we didn’t behave we’d be made to leave Three Graces and die of it.”
“Oh, Bree,” Haf says, exasperated.
Grimacing, Mairwen says, “That’s terrible.” She can’t help imagining it, how horrible the smell would be, and the fear. “But I know why we have the bargain, why we send our saint into the forest. I understand the—the sacrifice part. Or I understand how it’s supposed to work. But how can we do everything traditional, everything the same as always, when last time we did it all just like this and the bargain only lasted three years? How can our rituals matter? These pastries and our bonfire celebration matter, or tomorrow’s blessing shirt? It seems useless to me if we don’t know it will work again.”
