“She’s already had some,” Esther said, wiping her sticky hand on a rag.

“Then give her some more,” I said.

“There aren’t any more twigs.”

“Then go find the tree,” I said, trying not to sound impatient. “Willows are thirsty. Look near the spring.”

When she’d gone, Larkin said, “Your sister isn’t much like you.”

Which was true, though it wasn’t.

I watched Cate reach out tiredly to run her hand down Captan’s back.

“Do you really think Captan is Quiet’s daddy?” I asked Larkin.

He nodded. “I do believe he is.”

Cate, hearing this for the first time, said, “Who’s Quiet?”

I almost said, My pup.

“One of the pups at home.”

“They look like Captan did when he was young,” Larkin said.

Cate smiled. “Must be handsome then.”

“They are,” he replied. “And spoken for, or I’d ask for one.”

“Spoken for?”

“To be hunters,” I said. “In exchange for a milk cow.”

Which was when Esther came through the door, her fist full of willow twigs like a Quaker bouquet.

Which led Larkin to add another log to the fire.

Which made the kettle hum.

“Last time, the honey worked in a day,” I said to Cate, who nodded.

“And it may do the same this time. If not, you’ll have to cut me after all.” She tried and failed to look brave about that.

“But you can’t cut her,” Esther said to me, her own voice trembling a little. “You won’t need to do that. Will you?”

“Oh, child,” Cate said, “it might not come to that.”

But then the kettle began to scream.

And Esther turned toward the fire.

And Larkin scraped willow bark into a mug, where the hot water would soften it into medicine.

And I thought of the dead honeybees. And the terror of the snake. And the willow buds withering on the floor, just there by Larkin’s feet. And my mother’s mandolin, its strings sagging. How lonely Esther seemed. My Quiet, racing after a fawn, his teeth bared. Cate sitting alone in a fog of stink. And Larkin, standing by, appalled, while his father died.

And then Samuel coming out of nowhere, suddenly, the rabbit intent on the trees ahead, Samuel intent on the rabbit, as my father’s ax chocked and chocked against the tree, as the tree began to shake and crack, leaning, leaning, its branches frantic as it began to fall, my father stepping back and back, the tree spinning as I began to run, too slowly, toward my sweet, small brother, the tree thrashing overhead as I reached for him . . .