The young men used levers to raise the stone enough that Taleswapper could pull out the broom handle and the ropes that were still tied to the horses. The three of them cleared all the equipment out of the millhouse, then stabled the horses and put away the tools and supplies. Only then did Taleswapper return to the house to find that Alvin Junior was sleeping in Taleswapper’s bed.

“I hope you don’t mind,” said Anne anxiously.

“Of course not,” said Taleswapper.

The other girls and Cally were clearing away the supper dishes. In the room that had been Taleswapper’s, Faith and Miller, both ashen and tight-lipped, sat beside the bed, where Alvin lay with his leg splinted and bandaged.

David stood near the door. “It was a clean break,” he whispered to Taleswapper. “But the cuts in the skin—we fear infection. He lost all the skin off the front of his shin. I don’t know if bare bone like that can ever heal.”

“Did you put the skin back?” asked Taleswapper.

“Such as was left, we pressed into place, and Mother sewed it there.”

“That was well done,” said Taleswapper.

Faith lifted her head. “Do you know aught of physicking, then, Taleswapper?”

“Such as a man learns after years trying to do what he can among those who know as little as he.”

“How could this happen?” Miller said. “Why now, after so many other times that did him no injury?” He looked up at Taleswapper. “I had come to think the boy had a protector.”

“He has.”

“Then the protector failed him.”

“It did not fail,” said Taleswapper. “For a moment, as the stone fell, I saw it split, wide enough that it wouldn’t have touched him.”

“Like the ridgebeam,” whispered Faith.

“I thought I saw it too, Father,” said David. “But when it came down whole, I decided I must have seen what I wished for, and not what was.”

“There’s no split in it now,” said Miller.

“No,” said Taleswapper. “Because Alvin Junior refused to let it split.”

“Are you saying he knit it back together? So it would strike him and wreck his leg?”

“I’m saying he had no thought of his leg,” said Taleswapper. “Only of the stone.”

“Oh, my boy, my good boy,” murmured his mother, gently caressing the arm that extended thoughtlessly toward her. As she moved his fingers, they limply bent as she pushed them, then sprang back.

“Is it possible?” asked David. “That the stone split and was made whole again, as quickly as that?”

“It must be,” said Taleswapper, “because it happened.”

Faith moved her son’s fingers again, but this time they did not spring back. They extended even further, then flexed into a fist, then extended flat again.

“He’s awake,” said his father.

“I’ll fetch some rum for the boy,” said David. “To slack the pain. Armor’ll have some in his store.”

“No,” murmured Alvin.