“Yes.” Madeleine’s voice sounded as thick as Hæra’s had a few moments ago. Her hand, for a moment, trembled beneath Hæra’s. “Looks like it will be.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Just think, Madeleine had been disappointed only a few minutes ago.

More than disappointed. Closer to crushed. With only a few words, Jonathan had knocked down her hopes that he could provide the answers she needed. She’d been telling herself for years to prepare for that possibility. After all, what could he have seen from such a distance, in the dark? She’d known that. She’d even told herself there were no guarantees that he’d be here at all when she returned.

Hope had kept her in a stranglehold, though. He was the only human link she had to that night, and he’d had plenty of his own questions at the time. Part of her had always hoped he’d seek answers too and would have them ready for her when she arrived.

But Jonathan had no answers, only sympathy. That was one avenue closed to Madeleine. The others were all in shadow and seemed strewn with rocks. For a second, after he’d told her he couldn’t help, her chest had caved in.

Then, Hæra’s hand.

Now, Madeleine sat in the passenger seat of a two-seater, four-wheeled utility vehicle called a “Gator” that rumbled and bumped over uneven ground. She bounced in the seat while Hæra drove across the fields with cheerful abandon. Hæra’s dark ponytail flew behind her in the wind, and her cheeks were reddened in the fresh air.

At least the fields in daytime didn’t look anything like the darksome plain of Madeleine’s dream. The sun was indeed coming out today. Beneath its light, patches of grass flashed in different colors: neatly segmented squares of green and yellow.

She asked Hæra, raising her voice over the motor, “Why are some of those grass squares green and some yellow?”

“From moving the sheep from field to field during the summer months,” Hæra called back. “So we can cut silage.”

“What’s silage?”

“Grass for the winter. We ferment and store it. It doesn’t smell nice, but it’s worse when we spread the slurry. We don’t hang the washing outside then.”

“Slurry?” Madeleine asked, with a feeling she already knew.

“It’s mostly shite,” Hæra confirmed. Then she glanced at Madeleine with a frown. “That’s how the farmhands speak. Would you prefer I spoke otherwise?”

“Uh—” The Gator bounced into a large dip in the ground. “I’d prefer if you kept your eyes on the road!”

“There’s nothing to hit,” Hæra said reassuringly, although she looked forward again. “See? The sheep are farther up ahead. And we’re not really on a road.”