I think about this a bit, then I wish I hadn’t. I wish I’d never asked about the dog, because a shadow’s come down over me, and my head’s full of folk calling me Bonehead, and folk making fun of me, and Strangler dying just after I got him out, and Dribbles and Poxy lying butchered by the road. And before that, the dark thing, the terrible thing, and a load that’ll be on my shoulders till I die. Thought I could put it behind me. Thought I could start again. That night, when she called me up to her campfire, when she said I could come with her, I thought it was because she wanted me. I thought she needed me around, even if it wasn’t forever. That made me feel like flowers and sunshine and fresh bread. Like a starving cur expecting another kick, and getting a juicy bone and kind words. What she’s just told me turns that upside down. She only took me on because of poxy Conmael and his wretched promise. She never wanted me. She never needed me. Fool. Bonehead. Soon as you think you’ve found something good, someone comes and takes it away.

Blackthorn’s breathing quiet, like she’s asleep. Shadows creep close, pressing into me. Can’t stay. Not now. I get up, go out quiet-like, shutting the back door behind me. Path’s been laid new, flat stones in a pattern. I pick up a few big ones and put them in my pockets. Shouldn’t take many. Never did learn to swim.

41 Blackthorn

41

~BLACKTHORN~

What a gift: a night’s sleep in my own bed, in my own house. I felt as weary as if I’d spent the whole day haymaking or fighting a battle or hauling in fishing nets. The hardest part of it, the part nobody knew about, had been casting the spell to delay the rain. It was years since I’d gone down such a path; longer than I could remember since I had used the more arcane skills of a wise woman. I had done my best with the spell, and it had exhausted me. Whether the rain had held off because of me, or whether it would have been dry enough for Ciar to be coaxed up that path anyway, there was no way of knowing. Unless I asked Conmael, and he probably wouldn’t tell me even if I did.