“Da is kilometers away, in the earie paddock,” Irving said, still scowling at Yirr. “He won’t be back until dusk most likely.”

“I see,” said Sidra, rising. “Then I should probably go.”

“Don’t be silly,” her brother said with an impish smile. “I could use your help snapping beans.”

And that is how Sidra found herself sitting in the same chair at the same kitchen table, working with her hands, when Torin arrived. The same place and same time of day and same season—only the sun and her grandmother were missing. Or else Sidra could have fooled herself for a moment, believing time was a circle and this was the moment when Torin first knocked on the door with a displaced shoulder.

There was static in the air again, gathering in Sidra’s fingertips. Just as it had that day long ago. As if she had rushed her hands over wool, over threads unseen. Something was about to change, and she didn’t know what that thing was, but she felt it all the same in her bones.

Torin knocked on the door. His customary trio of raps, hard and urgent.

Irving huffed. He had snapped only half as many beans as Sidra had, and when he made to rise, she said, “I’ll answer the door.”

Her brother began to protest, but he must have seen that flicker of strange energy in Sidra, and he shut his mouth and lowered himself back down to the bench.

She delayed, though, until Torin knocked again, not as insistent this time.

She rose and answered the door.

Torin stared at her a long moment, a moment that needed no words. Behind her, Sidra heard the bench scraping the floor as Irving asked, “Is that Torin?”

“It is,” she replied after a beat, realizing Torin was still voiceless. “Why have you come?” she asked him in a whisper.

Torin held out his hand to her, a quiet invitation.

She knew if she passed beyond this threshold with him, that unknown change would ignite in the air. For a moment she feared it, because she sensed the path ahead would be hard. It would be forged through tears and heartache and patience and vulnerability. She couldn’t see the ending, but neither did she want to remain, stagnant and passive, in the place where she had begun.

She took his hand and passed over the threshold, closing the door behind her.

Yirr was panting in a mud puddle, content after his run with the sheep. He leapt up and followed Sidra and Torin through the long grass to the orchard. The air here smelled forbidden, sweet from rotten fruit, and Sidra at last came to a halt beneath the boughs, the wind stirring her hair.