Small bodies were curled and sprawled in cozy heaps under the big table, beside the hearth—though the fire had been smoored and the fire screen brought in from the kitchen, to prevent accidents—and in every corner of the room, sleeping on and under their parents’ outer garments and their own; she saw Mandy in one pile, limbs spread like a starfish. Jem would be somewhere else, out with the older boys. The whole room seemed to breathe with the deep slow rhythms of sleep, and she longed suddenly to lie down beside them and abandon consciousness.

She glanced for the dozenth time at the big window. That had an Indian trade blanket tacked over it, to keep out cold drafts. The hair lifted on her nape, looking at it; it wouldn’t keep out any of the things that walked at night.

“It’s all right, Bwee. I’m he-re.” The soft voice startled her and she jerked back, looking round. The voice had come from the corner by the hearth, and peering into the shadows, she made out Fanny, sitting cross-legged, Bluebell on the floor beside her, sound asleep, the dog’s muzzle laid on Fanny’s thigh, the muslin bandages round Bluey’s ribs a soft white patch in the dark.

“Are you all right, Fanny?” Bree whispered back. “Do you want anything to eat?”

Fanny shook her head, neat white cap like a mushroom poking through soil.

“Mrs. Fraser brought me supper. I said Bluey and me would stay with Orrie and Rob,” she said, careful with her r’s. “If they wake up—”

“Not likely,” Bree said, smiling despite her disquiet. “But you can come get me, if they do.”

A little of the sleeping children’s peace stayed with her as she left the surgery, but it vanished the moment she stepped back into the kitchen, hot and teeming with people. Her stays felt suddenly tighter and she lingered by the wall, trying to remember how to breathe from the lower abdomen.

“Does Bobby own his cabin?” Moira Talbert was asking, her eyes fixed speculatively on the little knot of people surrounding Bobby Higgins. “Himself built it, and I ken his lass and her man dwelt there for a time, but Joseph Wemyss told Andrew Baldwin as how Himself had given Bobby and Amy the place, but he didna say was it the house and land by deed, or only the use of it.”

“Dinna ken,” Peggy Chisholm replied, her own eyes narrowing in speculation. She glanced toward the far side of the room, where her two daughters were helping to cut and lay out slices of a vast fruitcake soaked in whisky that Mandaidh MacLeod had brought down. “D’ye think maybe that Himself has it in mind to wed his wee orphan lass to Bobby, though? If it was her, he’d see Bobby right for the cabin, sure …”