Hæra choked back a gasp. Beathag had said nearly the same thing right before she’d tried to murder her own offspring. She’d said it about Hæra as if it were the foulest curse she knew. Now Madeleine used those words as cudgels against herself.

“That’s not true,” Hæra said fiercely. “You’re kind. You’re generous. Aren’t you supposed to be those things?”

Madeleine didn’t seem to hear her. “I hate what I’ve been taught, I hate it, and that’s wrong too, and that’s—t-that’s—” She shook her forehead rapidly against Hæra. “Oh God!”

Hæra’s nose rested against Madeleine’s hair. This close, she could smell Madeleine better than ever. It was the most perfect scent in the world, the most tantalizing. How could Madeleine believe any part of her was bad, wrong, or anything less than perfectly beautiful? If Hæra had been wronged by her kin, Madeleine had been poorly served by her faith. No one should have dared to make her feel this way.

While Madeleine cried in her arms, she looked around. The man and woman at the water’s edge were watching them, but at Hæra’s glare, they quickly turned away. The old man was nearly to the end of the beach now.

“If that’s what you hate,” she said, “then what do you love?”

Madeleine took a deep, shaky breath, and let it go. She did it again, a couple more times, while her trembling slowed. Her face was still pressed against Hæra.

“I love springtime,” she said after a moment. “When I see the first crocus or daffodil. I love my coffee in the morning. I love starting a new piece of embroidery, all the possibility of the blank fabric.”

These did not seem like significant things, but plainly they were significant to Madeleine. Hæra waited for more, trying to do so patiently.

“I love singing, I don’t think I’ve told you that.” Her voice was muffled. “I love the first day of school, getting to know my students. I love the farmer’s market Becca and I go to sometimes. I love Becca, I really should call her soon. I love so many people I haven’t seen in so long. People who’ve gone, and I pray I’ll see them again, I love them too.”

Hæra said into Madeleine’s hair, “Even if you don’t see them again, you still loved them.”

“Ah!” Madeleine pressed her face hard into Hæra’s shoulder again, but it was only the truth. Hæra had spent years waiting for Sister Madeleine to return to her. But if she never had, then Hæra would still have had the memory of their meeting on this very beach. She understood that now.