“The dog is mine,” Sidra said, and her brother startled, finally noticing her kneeling in the garden.
“Sidra?” Irving asked, squinting at her.
She knew she looked a mess. Drenched from the rain and smudged with dirt, with her hair like unspooled darkness. It had been years since they had seen each other. “I was in the vale and thought I would visit you and Da.”
“Da is kilometers away, in the earie paddock,” Irving said, still scowling at Yirr. “He won’t be back until dusk most likely.”
“I see,” said Sidra, rising. “Then I should probably go.”
“Don’t be silly,” her brother said with an impish smile. “I could use your help snapping beans.”
And that is how Sidra found herself sitting in the same chair at the same kitchen table, working with her hands, when Torin arrived. The same place and same time of day and same season—only the sun and her grandmother were missing. Or else Sidra could have fooled herself for a moment, believing time was a circle and this was the moment when Torin first knocked on the door with a displaced shoulder.
There was static in the air again, gathering in Sidra’s fingertips. Just as it had that day long ago. As if she had rushed her hands over wool, over threads unseen. Something was about to change, and she didn’t know what that thing was, but she felt it all the same in her bones.
Torin knocked on the door. His customary trio of raps, hard and urgent.
Irving huffed. He had snapped only half as many beans as Sidra had, and when he made to rise, she said, “I’ll answer the door.”
Her brother began to protest, but he must have seen that flicker of strange energy in Sidra, and he shut his mouth and lowered himself back down to the bench.
She delayed, though, until Torin knocked again, not as insistent this time.
She rose and answered the door.
Torin stared at her a long moment, a moment that needed no words. Behind her, Sidra heard the bench scraping the floor as Irving asked, “Is that Torin?”
“It is,” she replied after a beat, realizing Torin was still voiceless. “Why have you come?” she asked him in a whisper.
Torin held out his hand to her, a quiet invitation.
She knew if she passed beyond this threshold with him, that unknown change would ignite in the air. For a moment she feared it, because she sensed the path ahead would be hard. It would be forged through tears and heartache and patience and vulnerability. She couldn’t see the ending, but neither did she want to remain, stagnant and passive, in the place where she had begun.
She took his hand and passed over the threshold, closing the door behind her.
Yirr was panting in a mud puddle, content after his run with the sheep. He leapt up and followed Sidra and Torin through the long grass to the orchard. The air here smelled forbidden, sweet from rotten fruit, and Sidra at last came to a halt beneath the boughs, the wind stirring her hair.
“It wasn’t my intention to worry you,” she said. “I came to the vale to visit my grandmother’s grave, and I wanted to see home for a spell. I would have returned long before dusk.”
Torin held her gaze, and she could see a trace of apprehension in him. He wanted to speak; she sensed his frustration as he opened his mouth, only to sigh. But he noticed the dirt beneath her nails. The weed poking its flowery head from her skirt pocket.
He gently laid his palm over her chest, and she knew he wanted her to open herself to him.
She glanced down at the grass, hesitant.
“I don’t know where to begin, Torin,” she said. It was odd, how she kept waiting for him to say something. She met his gaze, tears in her eyes. “I’ve always been devout. I’m sure you’ve realized that about me by now. Faith was woven deeply into my life, but it cracked when Maisie was taken. When the stranger beat me down into the heather, as if my life meant nothing.”
Torin’s hand moved to take her own. He was so warm, as if a fire were lit within him.
“Nearly every night when I tried to sleep,” she continued, “I would tell myself, You should have fought harder. You should have been stronger. You’ve failed Maisie and Torin. You’ve failed as a mother, as a wife, and now as a healer, and what is left for you? I believed those words. They planted so much doubt and pain in me … I didn’t know how to uproot them.”
Torin drew a sharp breath. Sidra dared to study his face and saw his anguish. He looked the same as he had the morning when he’d first seen her, battered and blood-stained. Like a blade had been plunged into him.
“I know now those words are lies,” she said, but her voice broke. “I also know there is nothing weak about grieving, or feeling sorrow, or being angry. But I always wanted to prove myself worthy of you, and losing Maisie has made me question everything about myself. Who I was, who I am. Who I want to become.”
She began to weep, unashamed of her tears or how she trembled. It felt like a cleansing, and she wanted it to flow, unhindered.
Torin embraced her. He pressed his face into her hair, and she could feel his chest shudder as he cried with her. Together, they wept for the child they had lost.
Eventually, Sidra leaned back so she could look at his face, flushed and red eyed.
“I need to finish by saying this,” she said, wiping her cheeks. “It’s hard for me to admit, but I realize I’ve built my life upon something that can be taken from me, and I’m afraid. I long for Maisie to come home, and yet there is no promise that she will, and what does that leave for you and me? We see the world from different angles, and I wonder … I wonder if there is a place for us within it.”
Torin’s breaths quickened. He took her hand and held it to his breast, slipping her palm beneath the protective enchantment of his plaid, so she could feel the beat of his heart. She stood with him beneath the boughs, and she closed her eyes, feeling the rhythm of his life.
It began to rain. A soft whisper through the orchard.
Torin drew her hand away from his chest, but then he laced his fingers with hers, and she sensed his determination. He wanted to try this with her, just the two of them. If they needed to carve their own place together, then he would attempt it. He leaned his brow to hers, and they stood breathing the same air, the same thoughts.
He traced her jaw, the rain now shining like tears on her face.
Come home with me.
Sidra nodded.
The rain had intensified by the time Torin led her back to where his horse waited in her father’s yard. The valley roads were swollen with mud, and Torin guided them carefully across the hills, Yirr trailing behind. The afternoon was melting into evening, and the sky was still churning with the storm when they returned to their croft. They were both soaked to the bone.
Sidra stepped into the common room. She would never get over how empty it was without Maisie; it always felt the worst the moment she returned home. She cleared her throat, searching for something to do. She wondered if she should spark the fire in the hearth, or if she should change her clothes first. Before she could decide, she felt Torin’s steady gaze.
He was standing very still, his flaxen hair drenched across his brow. Sidra didn’t understand why he was so attentive until she realized he was waiting for her command.
She walked to him, afraid of the desire she felt—how sharp it was within her—until she saw it mirrored in his own face.