I pulled the blanket back over her leg. Then I fetched the deerskin coat from the trunk and laid that over her, too. It was so heavy that I knew it would keep her heat in where it belonged and make her feel safe, besides.

“Heat up some jerky. In that skillet, there. On the wall,” I told Esther. “Just lay it across the bricks.”

She did what I said without question, tending the fire and the jerky both. The smell of the venison softening made Captan go toward her and sit nearby.

“What an ugly dog,” Esther said.

“Oh, hush,” I said. “You’re a beauty, Captan. A beauty.”

At which Cate stirred.

She peered at me in confusion.

“Captan came down to fetch me,” I told her. “He had your doll in his mouth.”

She looked at me, blinking, slow to wake.

I said, “I don’t know why he came for me instead of Larkin.”

She closed her eyes again. “Larkin’s mother isn’t so fond of Captan.”

I pushed Cate’s hair away from her face. “How could she not be fond of a dog like that?”

“He was my son’s dog.” She closed her eyes again. “First mine, as a puppy, but he took to my son like a bird to the sky. So . . .”

“Shouldn’t that make her love Captan even more?”

Cate didn’t reply.

After a while, she opened her eyes again and said, “You must be a very strong girl, to carry me back in here.”

“Oh,” I said, realizing suddenly that Esther was still standing quietly by the fire where Cate couldn’t see her. “My sister came up with me.”

“And we should be getting back now,” Esther said. “Mother will be worried.”

Cate craned her neck around. “A sister?”

Esther came forward a bit, though she still kept her distance.

Cate stared at her. “You can come closer, child. I won’t bite.”

After a long moment, Esther came to stand next to me by the bed, though she looked like she wanted to be somewhere else altogether.

“Ellie, fetch the lantern,” Cate said, frowning. Which I did, hoisting it so the light fell on Esther’s face.

“Oh my,” Cate said, her eyes growing wide. She reached for my sister’s hand, though Esther clearly did not want to give it. “You look nearly the same,” she said. “Older, but the same.”

And I smiled at what was coming.

Then she looked harder at me. At my face. My hair.

“You, though, have changed quite a lot. You’re thinner than you were. Taller. And your hair used to be so long.” She reached up with her other hand, and I bent lower so she could touch the soft shortness of it. “I used to call you Rapunzel.”

And I felt, in that touch, the big, jolly nurse we’d once known. The one who had called me Rapunzel and tended to Esther’s earaches.