“LaMancha goats?” Cybil commented and had Jo giving her another, longer look.
“That’s right. You don’t look like a goatherd.”
“I saw some a couple of years ago in Oregon. The way the tips of the ears turn up is distinctive. High butterfat content in the milk, isn’t that right?”
“It is. Would you like to try some?”
“I have. It’s excellent, and fabulous for baking.”
“It certainly is. Bri, Cybil, Quinn, and Layla.”
“Nice to-hey, we’ve met.” He grinned at Layla. “Sort of. I saw you yesterday, walking down Main.”
“You were replacing a door at the bookstore. I thought how comforting it was that there are people who know how to fix what’s broken.”
“Our specialty. Nice job with the blonde, Cal,” he added, giving Cal a one-armed hug and a wink. “About damn time,” he said to Gage, and hugged him in turn. “You guys want breakfast?”
“We don’t have a lot of time,” Fox told him. “Sorry.”
“No problem. I’ll take the milk in, Jo.”
“I’ll get the eggs. Go ahead and put tea on, Bri. It’s cold this morning.” She turned back to Fox. “Let us know if you need anything, or if we can help.”
“Thanks.” Fox gestured the group aside while his mother began gathering eggs into a basket. “How do you want to start? Inside?”
“We know the house wasn’t here then?” Quinn looked at Fox for confirmation.
“About a hundred years later, but it could have been built on another’s foundation. I just don’t know. That shed? Well, what’s left of that shed, the one covered with vines? That was here.”
“It’s too small.” Layla studied the remaining walls. “Would be, even for the time period for a house. If we’re talking about a small family taking in a woman and her three babies, that couldn’t have been big enough.”
“A smokehouse maybe,” Cybil mused. “Or an animal shelter. But it’s interesting that most of it’s still here. There could be a reason for that.”
“Let me try the house first.” Quinn studied the shed, the land, the big stone house. “Maybe walking around the house out here. I might get something. If not, we’ll do a walk-through, since it’s okay with Fox’s parents. If nothing then… there’s the land, that grove of trees, the fields, certainly the little ruin there. Fingers crossed, okay?”
She crossed the fingers of her left hand, held the right out for Cal. “The clearing in the woods, that’s sacred ground-magic spot. And the stone, it pushed those flashes right in. The attic in the library, that grabbed hold, too. I didn’t have to do anything. I’m not sure what I should do.”
“Think about Ann,” Cal told her. “You’ve seen her, you’ve heard her. Think about her.”
Quinn pictured Ann Hawkins as she’d seen her the first time, with her hair loose, carrying pails of water from the stream, her belly huge with her sons, and her face alight with love for the man who waited for her. She pictured her as she’d seen her the second time, slim again, dressed demurely. Older, sadder.
She walked over the tough winter grass, the thick gravel, over stepping stones. The air was cool and brisk on her cheeks, and was tinged with the scent of animal and earth. She held firm to Cal’s hand, knowing-feeling-he gave her whatever he had so that their abilities linked as their fingers did.
“I’m just not going there. I’m getting glimpses of you,” she said to Cal with a quick laugh. “A little guy, when you still needed your glasses. Fairly adorable. I can get zips of the three of you running around, and a younger boy, a girl. A toddler-another girl. She’s so cute.”
“You have to go deeper.” Cal squeezed her hand. “I’m right with you.”
“That might be the problem. I think I may be picking up on things you remember, your pictures.” She squeezed his hand in turn, then drew hers free. “I think I have to try it alone. Give me a little space. Okay, everybody? A little room.”
She turned, reached the corner of the house, then followed its line. It was so sturdy, she thought, and as Cybil had said, so handsome. The stone, the wood, the glass. There were flower beds sleeping, and in others sweet and hopeful shoots that must have been daffodils and tulips, hyacinths, and the summer lilies that would follow the spring.
Strong old trees offered shade, so she imagined-or maybe she saw-the flowers that shied from sunlight blooming there.
She smelled smoke, she realized. There must be wood fireplaces inside. Of course there would be. What wonderful old farmhouse didn’t have fireplaces? Somewhere to curl up on a cold evening. Flames sending dancing shadow and light, and the warmth so welcome.
She sat in a room lit by firelight and the glow of a single tallow candle. She did not weep though her heart was flooded with tears. With quill and ink, Ann wrote in her careful hand in the pages of her journal.
Our sons are eight months old. They are beautiful, and they are healthy. I see you in them, beloved. I see you in their eyes and it both comforts and grieves me. I am well. The kindness of my cousin and her husband are beyond measure. Surely we are a burden on them, but we are never treated as such. In the weeks before, and some weeks after the birth of our sons there was little I could do to help my cousin. Yet she never complained. Even now with the boys to look after, I cannot do as much as I wish to repay her and cousin Fletcher.
Mending I do. Honor and I made soap and candles, enough for Fletcher to barter.
This is not what I wish to write, but I find it so hard to subscribe these words to this paper. My cousin has told me that young Hester Deale was drowned in the pool of Hawkins Wood, and leaves her infant daughter orphaned. She condemned you that night, as you had foreseen. She condemned me. We know it was not by her will she did so, as it was not by her will the motherless child was conceived.
The beast is in the child, Giles. You told me again and again that what you would do would change the order,clean the blood. This sacrifice you made, and I and our children with you was necessary. On nights like this, when I am so alone, when I find my heart full of sorrow for a girl I knew who is lost, I fear what was done, what will be done so long from this night will not be enough. I mourn that you gave yourself for nothing, and our children will never see their father’s face, or feel his kiss.
I will pray for the strength and the courage you believedlived inside me. I will pray to find them again when the sun rises. Tonight, with the darkness so close, I can only be a woman who longs for her love.
She closed the book as one of the babies began to cry, and his brothers woke to join him. Rising, she went to the pallet beside her own to soothe, to sing, to offer her breast.
You are my hope, she whispered, offering one a sugar teat for comfort while his brothers suckled.
WHEN QUINN’S EYES ROLLED BACK, CAL LIFTED her off her feet. “We need to get her inside.” His long, fast strides carried her to the steps leading to the side porch. Fox rushed ahead, getting the door, then going straight into the family’s music room.
“I’ll get some water.”
“She’ll need more.” Cybil hurried after him. “Which way’s the kitchen?”
He pointed, turned in the opposite direction.
Because Quinn was shivering, Layla whipped a throw from the back of a small couch as Cal laid Quinn down.
“My head,” Quinn managed. “God, my head. It’s off the Richter scale. I may be sick. I need to…” She swung her legs over, dropped her head between her knees. “Okay.” She breathed in, breathed out as Cal massaged her shoulders. “Okay.”
“Here, try some water. Fox got you some water.” Layla took the glass he’d brought back, knelt to urge it on Quinn.
“Take it easy,” Cal advised. “Don’t sit up until you’re ready. Slow breaths.”
“Believe me.” She eyed the brass bucket Gage set next to her, then shifted her gaze to the kindling now scattered over the hearth. “Good thinking, but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to need that.”