We’d reached the new springhouse, a squat little stone-built structure straddling a likewise stone-lined ditch through which the water from the House Spring flowed. Buckets of milk and crocks of butter were sunk in the water, keeping cold, and wrapped cheeses sat quietly hardening on a shelf above, out of the reach of occasional muskrats. It was dim inside, and very cold; our breath wisped out when we stepped inside.

I took down the gourd dipper from its nail, squatted, and took the lid off the bucket that held the morning’s milk. I stirred it to mix the risen cream back in, drew a dipperful, and drank. It was cold enough to feel it sliding down my gullet, and delicious. I took a last swallow and handed Germain the dipper.

“Do you think Fanny knew what she was saying?” I asked, watching him as he squatted to draw his own milk. He didn’t look up, but he nodded, the top of his fair head bobbing over the dipper.

“Aye,” he said at last, and stood up, turning away from me as he reached up to hang the dipper on its nail. “Aye, she kent what it meant. She—she … touched me. When she said it.” Dim as it was, I could see the back of his neck darken.

“And what did you say?” I asked, hoping I sounded entirely calm.

He swung round and glared at me, as though it were somehow my fault. He had a mustache of cream, absurdly touching.

“I said awa’ and bile your heid! What else?”

“What indeed?” I said lightly. “I’ll talk to Grand-père about it.”

“You’re no going to tell him what Fanny said to me, are ye? I didna mean to get her in bother!”

“She’s not in trouble,” I assured him. Not the sort he meant, at least. “I just want your grandfather’s opinion about something. Now cut along”—I made a shooing gesture at him—“I have a hog to deal with.”

By contrast with what he’d just told me, three hundred pounds of pork chops, lard, and rotting intestines seemed trivial.

26

In the Scuppernongs

BRIANNA PULLED A HANDFUL of grapes off their stems and rolled them with one finger, flicking away any that were split, withered, or badly gnawed by insects. Speaking of insects—she hastily blew several ants that had crawled out of her grapes off the palm of her hand. They were tiny, but fierce biters.

“Ow!” She’d missed one of the little buggers, and it had just bitten her in the web between her middle and ring fingers. She tossed the grapes into her bucket and rubbed her hand hard on her breeches, momentarily easing the burn.

“Gu sealladh sealbh orm!” Amy said at the same moment, dropping a handful of grapes and shaking her hand. “There’s hundreds o’ the wee a phlàigh bhalgair in these scuppernongs!”

“They weren’t nearly as bad yesterday,” Bree said, trying to rasp the ant bite between her fingers with her front teeth. The itch was maddening. “What’s brought them out, I wonder?”