I gather up the basket again. “Let me clean these. Hopefully, there’s enough to make a stew out of.”

“You need to cook tonight,” she says, nodding to the heap of washing left to do.

Glancing over to the kitchen, I do not see our brother. “Why isn’t Pip helping you?”

“He’s having one of his fits.” Her eyes dart to the pantry.

Pulling back the curtain, I find Pip on the pantry floor. My brother looks ill, but in all honesty, he’s looked sick since the day he was born. He lifts his head, all red-rimmed eyes and running nose. Pale skin and thin limbs, but an oddly rounded belly. Not a stitch of clothing on him.

“Where are your clothes?”

“It’s too hot in here,” he says.

“You’ll catch your death, you little idiot.” Mind you, if Pip caught a cold, none of us would know the difference. “Get dressed and help your sister.”

He shrieks. A long, sustained note of ear-piercing pitch that does not stop until I draw the pantry curtain closed.

I augur a finger into my ear to relieve the pain and look at Bryndis. “One of those days, I see.”

A noise from the yard has Bryndis and me looking up. Father and Sligo are saying goodbye. Sligo, with his absurdly long arms and bulbous nose, makes a point to doff his cap to Bryndis before he goes out the gate. Father scowls to see us gawking from the kitchen.

“Bryndis, come here,” he says. “We must talk.”

My sister is abruptly pale. Her jaw clenches as she grits her teeth at what is to come. Then she lowers her head and does what she is told.

***

The cutting block in the yard is a prehistoric tree stump tempered dark from the countless fish cleaned on it. Scales dot the surface, twinkling in the waning sunlight. Our home, the rectory, is set back from the church and screened behind a hedge. I slit the blackfish up the belly, mindful of its spikes, and remove its entrails. There is not a lot of meat on this stingy little fish.

The slam of a door lifts my attention and I see my sister march into the yard in tears. She flops onto a log and buries her face in her hands. The bad news she has been dreading is here.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. Little comfort, that is. “Who is it to be?”

She drags a sleeve across her nose. “Sligo.”