As usual, her friend refused to go for a walk the first three times Leelo asked, but finally, whether out of annoyance or boredom, she agreed. She didn’t question Leelo when she led them off the main trail into the Forest. Isola never asked where they were going; she never asked any questions at all. And even though by the end of their walks Isola seemed a little less sorrowful, she was always just as sad the next day.

“The lambs are getting big,” Leelo said. “You should come see them again sometime.”

“Perhaps.” Isola’s hair had grown a bit, and Leelo was relieved to see she was back to brushing it. But she had grown pale from so many days spent indoors, and she was thinner than Leelo had ever seen her.

“I’m helping my mother with a new dress,” Leelo pressed on, desperate for some inroad into the real purpose of this visit. “Would you like to learn? You could make your own dress for the summer solstice.”

Isola, who generally kept her eyes downcast or on the trail ahead, stopped and turned toward Leelo. “I’m not allowed at the summer solstice.”

“Saints, Isola. I’m sorry. I forgot.”

“Why are you being so nice to me, Leelo? You’re not supposed to visit me. I’m not even good company. I never have anything to contribute to our conversations, and I never will.”

Leelo shook her head. “But you will, Isola. If you find ways to distract yourself, you’ll be a little less sad every day. I know it’s painful, but it will get less painful, with time.”

“How do you know?” Isola asked, but there was no venom in it, only genuine fear. “How can you be so sure?”

Leelo gestured to a fallen tree, where they sat down next to each other. “I was young when my father died, but I was old enough that his death left a big hole in my life, and an even bigger hole in my mother’s. But she had two young children to care for, and she had to keep going for our sake. I know at the beginning she was just going through the motions of living, making us our meals and sewing our clothes, but eventually she started to come back to us. She’d smile when Tate made a silly face, or laugh when she spilled flour on the floor instead of crying. She wasn’t the same, maybe, but she was okay.”

Isola plucked a wildflower from near her feet and began pulling off the petals one by one. “Your mother had something to live for, though. What do I have?”