“And so I charge you, drink to the happy pair! May their union be long and fruitful, and a sign of friendship and peace between neighbors.”

I’d missed something; Liam was standing, rather pale but unable to keep a smile off his usually serious face, and then he was taking Eilis’s hand, and I finally saw the way they looked at each other and knew it for what it was.

“Married? Liam?” I said to nobody in particular. “To her?” But they were all laughing and cheering, and even my father looked almost contented. I saw the old hermit, Father Brien, speaking quietly to Liam and Eilis amid the crowd. Clutching my hurt to myself, I slipped out of the hall, right away from the torches and candles and noise, to the stillroom that was my own place. But not to work; I sat in the deep window embrasure with a single stub of candle to keep me company, and stared out into the darkened kitchen garden. There was a sliver of moon, and a few stars in the black; slowly the garden’s familiar faces showed themselves to me, though I knew them so well I could have seen them in pitch darkness: soft blue-green wormwood, that warded off insects; the yellow tips of rioting tansy, dainty gray lavender with its brilliant spikes of purple and blue, the rough stone walls blanketed in soft drift of green where an ancient creeper flourished. There were many more; and behind me on shelves, their oils and essences gleaming in bottle, jar, or crucible, for cure or palliative; their dried leaves and blooms hanging above me in orderly bundles. A delicate healing smell hung in the quiet air. I took a few deep breaths. It was very cold; the old cloak I’d left on a hook behind the door here was some help, but the chill went straight to your bones. The best of summer was over.

I must have sat there for quite some time, cold even amid the comfort of my own things. It was the end of something, and I didn’t want it to end. But there was nothing to be done about it. It was impossible not to cry. Tears flooded silently down my cheeks and I made no effort to wipe them away. After a while, footsteps sounded on the flagstones outside and there was a gentle tap at the door. Of course, one of them would come. So close were we, the seven of us, that no childhood injury went unnoticed, no slight, real or imagined, went unaddressed, no hurt was endured without comfort.

“Sorcha? Can I come in?”

I’d thought it would be Conor; but it was my second brother, Diarmid, who ducked under the lintel and entered, disposing his long frame on a bench near my window. The flickering candle flame showed me his face in extremes of shadow and light; lean, straight-nosed, a younger version of Liam’s, save for the fuller mouth so ready to break into a wicked grin. But for now, he was serious.