A small jolt ran through her at the word “Boston.” The Old State House behind her and the smell of traffic, with the big round bronze plaque set into the asphalt at her feet. Her fifth-grade classmates clustered around it, all shivering in the wind off the harbor. The Boston Massacre, the plate read.

“A riot,” she said, more firmly. “A big group of people attacked a small group of soldiers. Bobby shot someone to save the soldiers’ lives.”

“Oh, aye?” said Sarah MacBowen with a skeptical arch of her brow. “So why is it he’s got yon M on his face, then?”

The scar had faded in the ten years since, but was clearly visible now; Bobby sat by the coffin, and the pale glow of the candle showed the mark of the brand, dark against the whiteness of his face. She saw that he was still gripping the edge of the pine coffin, as though he could keep Amy from going from him, refusing to acknowledge that she was already gone.

Brianna had to go to him. Had to look at Amy. Had to apologize.

“Excuse me,” she said abruptly, and pushed past Moira.

A small group of Bobby’s friends were clustered about him, murmuring gruff words and giving him an occasional consoling squeeze of the shoulder. She hung back, awaiting an opening, her heartbeat thumping in her ears.

“Och, Brianna!” A hand clutched her arm, and Ruthie MacLeod leaned in to peer at her. “Are ye all right, a nighean? They’re sayin’ as how ye were with Amy when the wicked beast took her—is it so?”

“Yes,” she said. Her lips felt stiff.

“What happened?” Beathag Moore and another young woman were clustering behind Ruthie, eyes bright with curiosity. “How close were ye to the bear?”

As though the word “bear” had been a signal, heads turned toward Brianna.

“As close as I am to you right now,” she said. She could barely hear her own words; her heart had speeded up and … oh, God. It burst into a violent flutter in her chest, as though a flock of sparrows were trapped inside her, and black spots swam at the edges of her sight. She couldn’t breathe.

“I—I have to—” She made a helpless gesture at the avid faces, turned, and lurched out of the room, half-running for the stairs.

She was pulling at her bodice as she reached the landing, and all but ripped it off as she stumbled into the bedroom and pushed the door closed behind her.

She had to get out of the stays, she couldn’t breathe … She tore the straps off her shoulders and squirmed out of the half-fastened corset, gasping for air. Threw off her skirt and petticoat and leaned against the wall, heart still galloping. Air.

Sweating and trembling, she flung open the door and started up the stairs to the open air of the unfinished attic.