In keeping with custom, the household waited for Father to rise before leaving the table. As soon as I could I fled upstairs, unwilling to be engaged in talk by anyone. Outside Mother’s door I hesitated, for there was a powerful need in me to see her, to tell her that I loved her and that I was sorry if what had happened was my fault. But I could not bring myself to knock. She wouldn’t want to see me. She wouldn’t want to confront the daughter who, through sheer negligence, had brought down this darkness on the household. Or so everyone seemed to believe.

I walked into my bedchamber and stopped short. Sibeal was seated on Deirdre’s bed, cross-legged, gazing down at the sleeping form of Becan where he lay rolled in his blanket behind the storage chest. She looked pensive.

I shut the door behind me, my heart thumping. The secret was a secret no longer. “How did you get up here?” I asked. In fact the answer was obvious; there were narrow steps at the other end of the passageway, leading up from a back entry used mostly by serving people. These made it possible to come upstairs unseen by folk in the hall.

“What do you see when you look at this?” Sibeal asked, ignoring my question as she continued to scrutinize Becan. “Muirrin said you were so upset that your mind was confused.”

“What do you see?” I responded, hoping beyond hope that this sister, known since she was tiny for her exceptional powers as a visionary, might share my conviction that Becan was more than a bundle of sticks and stones.

“You speak first, Clodagh. Then I’ll tell you.”

I did not argue. If she wanted to, Sibeal could run to Father right now with the news that I had rescued what he wanted locked away. She could tell him I’d been willfully disobedient. “I see a newborn baby made of all the stuff of the forest,” I told her. “He’s sleeping now, but I can see his chest going in and out and hear his breathing. When he’s hungry he cries. When he’s frightened he screams. He drinks honey water; he clutches onto my finger. He’s alive, Sibeal. He’s a changeling.”

There was a long, long pause while my sister studied the tiny, wrapped-up figure. Eventually I said, “You can’t see him. Even you think I’m imagining this.”

“It’s not as simple as that,” said Sibeal. “It’s true, I do see a bundle of sticks there, with a couple of pebbles where the eyes would be. It’s a figure of a baby, that much is plain, though how it holds together I can’t work out. But, Clodagh, that’s not all I’ve seen.”

“What?” I whispered, reminding myself to breathe. “What do you mean?”