One of the women was led into the center of the circle. Though Gwen could not see her face, she could see the way the woman’s steps were slow, her shoulders bowed—the specter of grief weighed on her, something heavy and hopeless. Awe gave way to uneasiness, and Gwen shifted her weight.

“Maybe we shouldn’t be watching,” she whispered.

Isobelle turned away long enough to meet Gwen’s gaze. “I . . . I think I was invited. I don’t think they would mind.”

There was a faint question in Isobelle’s eyes, one that left room for Gwen to object. She would go if Gwen wanted to—though something in her just as clearly wanted to stay.

Gwen hesitated, and then shifted so she could sit, rather than kneel, on the loamy earth beneath her. Isobelle flashed her a smile, and then they both ducked their heads to peer back out of the thicket.

The circle of witches drew closer, enclosing the one they’d singled out within their protection. The chant died away to make room for a single voice—perhaps it was Delia’s, though Gwen could not be sure across the distance. The wind shifted this way and that, bringing fragments of the witch’s voice to the blackberry thicket.

Then the circle all spoke together, the very trees ringing with the words: “We who look upon her are filled with love.”

Gwen could not tell if they meant the moon, or the woman enclosed by the circle, or both.

The witches, voices rising in unison, began to chant a name—that of the woman in the circle, perhaps. Rheda, they called. Rheda, we hear you. Rheda, we see you.

Together they lifted their arms, concealing the woman who stood in their midst, and as if in answer, the wind rose to such a pitch that it began to howl through the trees. Isobelle drew close against Gwen and she leaned back, their bodies conserving their warmth together as the gale threatened to snatch it away.

On the altar beneath the tree, the candle flames vanished into the wind, objects tumbling over and crashing from the stone—the witches’ white shifts were flattened against them, their hair flying, their bodies and arms bending like saplings in a storm. The very air seemed to shimmer—Gwen’s eyes grew dim and teary in the wind as she strained to see—

And then the gale subsided. The chant, which had grown to a screaming pitch, eased. The name Rheda faded away again as the witches lowered their arms. Rheda stood, her chest heaving, her face tilted up toward the moon. As she stepped out of the circle again, the weight she’d carried had shifted. Not banished, but . . . made bearable, somehow. As if, when she walked into the circle, she had been more pain than anything else.

Now, she remembered who she was.