The barn was huge: stone below with painted wood above. The doors were closed and fastened with a fat iron paddock lock. But high above, the hayloft was thrown wide to greet the night. Auri climbed the ivy-knotted stone as quickly as a squirrel. She went slower up the second half, the barn-boards odd against her fingers and her feet.

The barn was full of musk and sleep. Dark too, save for a few thin bands of moonlight slanting through the wooden walls. Auri opened Foxen’s tiny box, and his blue-green light welled out to fill the open space.

An old horse nuzzled Auri’s neck as she walked by his stall. She smiled at him and took the time to brush his tail and mane. There was a pregnant nanny goat which bleated out a greeting. Auri scooped some grain into her trough. There was a cat, and they ignored each other.

Auri spent some time there, looking over everything. The grindstone. The quern. The small, well-fitted churn. A bearskin stretched upon a rack to cure. It was a quite uncommon, pleasant place. Everything was tended to and loved. Nothing she could see was useless, lost, or wrong.

Well, nearly nothing. Even the tightest ship lets slip a little water. A single turnip had gone tumbling from its bin to lie abandoned on the floor. Auri put it in her gathersack.

There was a large stone sweatbox, too. It was stacked with slabs of ice, each thicker than a cinder brick and twice as long. Inside she found butchered meat and sweet cream butter. There was a lump of suet in a bowl, a sheet of honeycomb upon a tray.

The suet was enraged. It was a storm of autumn apples, age, and anger. It wanted nothing more than to be on its way. She tucked it deep inside her bag.

Oh. But the honeycomb. It was lovely. Not one bit stolen. The farmer loved the bees and did things in the proper way. It was full of silent bells and drowsy summer afternoon.

Auri felt inside her pockets. Her fingers passed over the crystal and the small stone doll. The rock wasn’t proper for this place either. She reached inside her gathersack and felt around among the acorns she’d collected.

For a long moment, it seemed like nothing she had brought would make a proper fit. But then her fingers found it and she knew. Carefully she brought out the length of fine white tatted lace. She folded it and left it near the churn. It was the careful work of many long and drowsy autumn days. It would find purpose in a place like this.

Then Auri took the clean white cloth that had held the hollyberry earlier and rubbed it with some butter. Then she broke off a piece of sticky comb the size of her spread hand and wrapped it up as tidy as can be.