But this was my own story. And surprisingly, it was I who met our father first, for when my brothers followed Donal indoors, I slipped around the side to my old garden, which Oonagh in her spite had destroyed. I had thought my heart broken, then. How little I had known of sorrow.

My garden was still a mess of tumbled stones and mounded earth, but the seasons had been kind since my departure. Mosses clothed shattered path and weathered stone wall. Creepers rioted over the remains of a trellis; in spring it would be blanketed in blossoms of pure white. There were brave spikes of lavender among the weeds, a faint haze of blue-gray, and I could smell the healing scent of thyme. The stillroom door stood ajar. The old bench was almost overgrown with soft feathery fronds of wormwood and chamomile, and there my father sat, wrapped in a dark cloak, staring in front of him with vacant eyes. His once stern, strong face seemed somehow blurred, as if someone had smudged a wet brush across the features of some painted king. Of his two wolfhounds, who had once shadowed his every footstep, there was not a sign.

I advanced across the garden, picking my way on the broken paving. He turned his head slowly at the sound, and his deep-set eyes took on an expression of sheer wonderment. I came closer.

“Niamh?” he breathed, incredulous.

“No, Father,” I said, swallowing hard. “It’s I, Sorcha, your daughter. I’ve come home. We are all back, returned to you safe.”

I came up and sat on the bench by his side. There was a long silence. After a while, I reached out and took his hand in both of mine. It was trembling.

I scarcely knew what to say. I had been a child when I left, he a stern, distant figure whom I hardly knew. Now it was as if I were the parent, and he the child.

“Father?” I ventured. “Do you know me?”

He took a long time to reply.

“My daughter was a little girl,” he said finally.

“It—it’s been quite a while.”

“I lost them, you know. All of them. Even the smallest one.”

Around us the garden was quiet.

“Father. Perhaps we should go in. My brothers are here, all of them. It’s all right now.” But I knew this was untrue.

He sighed. “I don’t think so. Not yet. I will stay here for a while. You go in.” He settled back into silence, and his eyes again lost their focus. At length I got up and walked to the door, my skirts brushing the trailing chamomile and creeping thyme, sending a sweet scent into the cool morning air. As I reached for the door he spoke again, behind me.

“I’m sorry, Niamh,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

But when I turned my head, he was not looking at me. You might have thought his gaze was fixed on the stone wall, but I sensed he saw something far, far away, as distant as an ancient memory, but still sweet and strong as the note of a harp, and painful as a sword thrust deep into the vitals. I went indoors to find my brothers.