And Ben, who came in next, gave the sort of whistle men give when they fancy a girl they see walking by. I was used to Ben; I knew he meant no harm; and so I was able to smile at him before I looked away. Looked straight into Red’s eyes as he stood in the doorway, staring at me. He had been talking, and he had stopped in midsentence. Slowly the others, too, fell silent, and there was a tension in the room. Suddenly, I found I did not want to meet Red’s gaze any longer, for fear of what I might read in his eyes, and I grabbed my homespun grown and, brushing past him, fled to my own quarters and bolted the door. There I took off the blue dress and put on the old one, and I tore the ribbons from my hair, while the little dog watched me, her round, rheumy eyes full of simple affection. I folded Margery’s gift and laid it away in the wooden chest, and the silken ribbons with it, and I closed the lid. Soon I would place the fifth shirt there, and only one would be lacking. This chest held the lives of my family within its simple oaken frame. Liam, Diarmid, Cormack. Conor. Finbar. Padriac. Sorcha. For you are that woman in the mirror, I told myself. You are a child no longer, whatever you might wish. You are a woman with a woman’s body, and you do not think or feel as you did back there at Sevenwaters, when you ran wild in the forest and the trees spread their canopy to shelter you. Men will look at you. Come to terms with it, Sorcha. You cannot hide forever. They will look at you with desire in their eyes. You were taken against your will, and it damaged you. But life goes on. It sounded logical. But I thought, still, that I would never be able to feel a man’s touch without fear. The women’s talk made me shudder. Showing my body made me ashamed. I could no longer look into my friend’s eyes, for fear of what I might see there.

Later, I went out into the orchard, after first making sure nobody was around. I sat on the grass under an old spreading apple tree, on whose gnarled limbs even now blossom gave way to the first small setting of green fruit. Red and I had shared an apple once. That seemed a long, long time ago, in another world. In another tale. I spoke to the Fair Folk, in my mind. I spoke to the Lady of the Forest. If any of their kind were here at all in this foreign place, if any of them could hear me, it would be in such a place as this, under trees. I wished I could have been in the heart of the oak forest, but I had been forbidden to go there alone. I concentrated my mind on this message, and bent it toward her with all my strength. Let him go, I said. Release him from your spell. You’re not playing fair. He never did know the rules. All was quiet. There was no way of knowing if anyone heard me. No faery laughter, no voices in the rustling of the leaves. He is a good man. I believe, the best of his kind. He is to be wed soon, and has a duty to his people. What you’re doing is wrong, and I won’t have it. Let him free. Release him from his obligation to me, and give him back his sleep, and his will. I waited for a while, and there was no sound but a tiny stirring of wind in the branches, and Alys breathing. It hurts him, the fire in the head. You hurt him. You have done him an injustice, by making him my protector. Besides, I can look after myself. He risks neglecting his own; they need him more than I do. Set him free from your spell.