“Aye, they say it is, that every thinny grows, but it grows slowly. ’Twon’t escape Eyebolt Canyon in your time or mine.”

She looked up at the sky, and saw that the constellations had continued to tilt along their tracks as they spoke. She felt she could talk to him all night—about the thinny, or Citgo, or her irritating aunt, or just about anything—and the idea dismayed her. Why should this happen to her now, for the gods’ sake? After three years of dismissing the Hambry boys, why should she now meet a boy who interested her so strangely? Why was life so unfair?

Her earlier thought, the one she’d heard in her father’s voice, recurred to her: If it’s ka, it’ll come like a wind, and your plans will stand before it no more than a barn before a cyclone.

But no. And no. And no. So set she, with all her considerable determination, her mind against the idea. This was no barn; this was her life.

Susan reached out and touched the rusty tin of Mrs. Beech’s mailbox, as if to steady herself in the world. Her little hopes and daydreams didn’t mean so much, perhaps, but her father had taught her to measure herself by her ability to do the things she’d said she would do, and she would not overthrow his teachings simply because she happened to encounter a good-looking boy at a time when her body and her emotions were in a stew.

“I’ll leave ye here to either rejoin yer friends or resume yer ride,” she said. The gravity she heard in her voice made her feel a bit sad, for it was an adult gravity. “But remember yer promise, Will—if ye see me at Seafront—Mayor’s House—and if ye’d be my friend, see me there for the first time. As I’d see you.”

He nodded, and she saw her seriousness now mirrored in his own face. And the sadness, mayhap. “I’ve never asked a girl to ride out with me, or if she’d accept a visit of me. I’d ask of you, Susan, daughter of Patrick—I’d even bring you flowers to sweeten my chances—but it would do no good, I think.”

She shook her head. “Nay. ’Twouldn’t.”

“Are you promised in marriage? It’s forward of me to ask, I know, but I mean no harm.”

“I’m sure ye don’t, but I’d as soon not answer. My position is a delicate one just now, as I told ye. Besides, it’s late. Here’s where we part, Will. But stay... one more moment...”