By autumn’s end, the sickness had run its course, and the survivors were putting things to rights as best they could. There were one or two, like Nessa’s mother, who might never quite get over it. But life had to go on. There had been hard times before: harsh winters, cattle plagues, war with the tribes of the Caitt. The wisdom of the ancestors had enabled the Folk to endure such reversals. They would continue to survive. It was whispered that perhaps it was just as well Ulf and his snow giants had come when they did, since the Folk had lost so many good people this season. At least there would be strong men for plowing, in the spring.

As for Nessa, she was glad to be busy. It stopped her from thinking too much. When she thought, she grew very angry, so angry she had to go away from the settlement and stand alone at the western end of the Whaleback, on the clifftop, letting the wind and the sea spray sting her skin and whip her long hair into a flag of defiance. Sometimes she would find herself screaming like a wild creature into the gale. Sometimes she wept. She never returned to the settlement until the signs of her anguish were quite erased from her features. There was a rain pool up there in which you could see an image of yourself. She knew that person in the water was someone different from the Nessa of last spring, who had walked the cliff paths and bright shores of the island and never dreamed her people’s lives could hold such pain. The creature who looked up at her now had the same gray eyes; her hair was still long and brown and wind-tangled. But she was paler and thinner, and her expression was quite changed. There was a sort of shadow in it, as if she had lost something, or perhaps had found something she didn’t want, but must keep forever.

Once she came across Tadhg standing quietly by the place where her folk were laid in the earth, so many, her sisters among them. There was a cairn over them, stones layered neatly. In time, a green turf blanket would soften it. Tadhg’s lips were moving. His hands held the plain wooden cross that he wore around his neck, and all of a sudden Nessa could not control her feelings.

“Stop it! Stop it!” she screamed, running at him and grabbing his hands so that the cross fell back against his robe, swinging on its rough cord. “They don’t want your prayers, they can’t hear your words of wisdom! These are lies anyway, all lies! Your faith is a web of falsehoods! If your god is so gentle and forgiving, if he loves the innocent and pure of heart, why did he let my sisters die?”