Chapter 9: Sleep-Sage

"I remember the rest now," I said.

My voice sounded like someone else's in the dark cabin.

Torquil had pulled a fur over my shoulders.

He sat on the floor with his back against the stove, naked and rigid, watching me.

"Tell me."

"My mother found me in the corner, with the book still open on my knees."

I pulled the fur tighter.

"What did she say?"

"Nothing. She picked me up and carried me out the back way. She was shaking so badly that she dropped her basket."

The words kept coming.

"At home she made tea, sage and valerian and something sour.

She sat on my bed and said, 'You were asleep, Dilys. Say it with me.'"

His face did not change.

"I said it. She made me say it forty times. Then I drank the tea and slept for two days."

"How long did she dose you?"

"A year. Every night she sat there until the cup was empty." I laughed, short and awful. "I thought she was being kind."

"Josiah came to the cottage that night," Torquil said slowly. It was not a question.

"I heard him in the kitchen, through the floor, but not the words.

He stayed an hour. When he left, my mother stopped crying."

I looked at him.

"I think he told her what he'd do to me if I ever said it. And I think she believed him."

He was silent a long time.

"The night before your Moon Ceremony," he said. "The fever. You had it three nights."

"Everyone does."

"Who sat with you?"

I opened my mouth, and nothing came out.

My mother had been dead four years by then.

I remembered the sweat, and the hot sheets, and a warm hand on my forehead in the dark.

"Josiah," I said. "He came every night. He said a prayer. He held my hand."

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