She looked at her cousin again, who was using her free hand to smooth her hair. Was it possible this was what had prompted Sage to say she never wanted to fall in love? Could she have feelings for Hollis Harding? Sage’s expression was as serious as always, but Leelo had never known her to dress up for dinner at a neighbor’s house.

The Hardings’ cottage was in a different sector of the island, about an hour’s walk from their home. Some families kept wooden carts and ponies to travel from one end of the island to another, a two-hour journey by foot. As much as Leelo liked walking, she hoped Mr. Harding would offer them a ride home. Fiona was making an effort to appear comfortable, but it was just that: an effort. Her breathing was labored and her face was pale except for two bright circles of color high in her cheeks. Aunt Ketty strode ahead at her usual brisk pace, oblivious to her sister’s struggle.

“We can rest, Mama,” Leelo said, but Fiona shook her head, as Leelo had known she would.

“I’m fine, dear. I suppose this is what comes from spending so much time in bed.” She managed a smile, and Leelo returned it, because she knew that was what her mother wanted.

“If you would sing more, you wouldn’t be so weak,” Ketty said over her shoulder. “There are consequences to missing so many rituals.”

Fortunately, they reached the house not much later, and Leelo made sure Fiona was comfortably seated before she left the adults to find the other children in the yard.

Mrs. Harding had a wonderfully green thumb, and her garden was a riot of colorful flowers and the loud buzzing of various pollinators. She traded her flowers with the islanders, some dried for teas and tinctures, others fresh simply because they were beautiful. Sage and Hollis were sitting on a bench underneath an arch dripping with wisteria, while Tate and Hollis’s little sister, Violet, played with a litter of kittens near a hydrangea bush.

Leelo managed a tight smile as she approached Sage and Hollis. She didn’t know if he remembered her crush, but she couldn’t look at him now without thinking about how humiliated she’d been when Tate confessed that he’d revealed her secret. Needless to say, Hollis had not returned her feelings, calling her pale and scrawny.

Since then, he’d grown into a hulking brute of a boy, with golden curls Leelo had once been so desperate to touch that she found any excuse to be near him. One day, a leaf had fallen in his hair, and she’d been elated at the prospect of removing it for him. She chuckled to herself at the memory, finding it hard to believe she’d ever acted that foolish over a boy.