Chapter 24: Midsummer

A year later I wore the green sundress to the Midsummer fair again.

I did it on purpose.

The square was the same. Striped awnings, the smell of frying dough, children running between the stalls with ribbons in their hair.

The difference was that half the people in it had crossed a bridge to be there.

Cairnfell wolves bought bread from Hollowmere bakers.

A Cairnfell girl and a Hollowmere boy were arguing happily over a ring toss.

The old healer sat in a folding chair by the well, accepting gifts.

Rhys found me at the fund stall.

It was a small table under a blue awning with a ledger on it, and a sign in six different hands.

PACK FUND. ASK FOR YOUR OWN BOOK.

The women who had been on the list ran it now.

Each of the six took a shift, and anyone could come and read any page, any day.

The thin young clerk had been promoted to keep the till.

"You came," Rhys said.

"I live here."

"You live over there," he said, nodding at the river, "and here, and in my kitchen on Sundays."

"And the east hall."

He looked at me for a moment longer than he needed to.

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