It’s not her,” Brighida insisted in the lodge the next morning, her voice quiet but her tone urgent. “She’s not Morwen. She can’t be.”

“She can be. She is,” I hissed. Bending over to smooth soft hides and warm blankets over the small pallet I had placed between mine and Brighida’s, I stole a glance at the child playing quietly in the doorway with the purple stones I had found in her pocket. Though she had been with us for an entire day, she still had not said a word.

Brighida went to her and knelt beside her. “What shall we call you, little one?” She tilted her head and smiled; but the child, somber in Brighida’s presence, put down the stones she had been piling in the dirt and got up. As she walked away, Brighida simply watched.

“Let’s go to the sheep,” I said holding out my hand. “Then we’ll go to the springhouse and get some cheese to break our fast.”

Her face brightened and she ran to me, the hem of the tunic we had hastily made for her brushing her short brown legs.

Over the child’s head, I mouthed to Brighida, “I believe she is.”

Holding her hand, I led her to the pen, just as Morwen had led me when I was not much older than this little one. She looked every bit like I imagined Morwen might have appeared as a child. And she seemed to know Alf the moment she laid eyes on him. Each time he approached, she ran to him.

Who else could she be?

As if to bear me out, she let go of my hand the moment Alf stepped out of the pen and ran to him and took his.

He smiled at me and raised his other hand as if to say, “I don’t understand this either.” He bent down and said something that made her run into the barn ahead of him, then waited until I had reached him and walked slowly with me toward the sheep.

“Ask her her name,” I said.

Still watching her, he nodded and then followed her into the barn.

That she could be so fearful of Brighida yet embrace this man with the snarling lip, who smelled of hay and animals and manure, mystified me; yet there she was, bringing him a bucket she had filled with straw. And there was Alf, thanking her solemnly, taking out the straw, making a neat pile of it, and carrying the bucket back to the spring to be filled.

Like brother and sister, I thought.

And hadn’t Morwen loved Alf? Hadn’t she prophesied that he would one day serve me? Hadn’t she herself seen to it that he would learn Latin and Greek from the Blackfriars so he could teach me?

I closed my eyes for a moment, hardly able to bear the sweetness of seeing the two of them together again.

Morwen. Even my thoughts were soft this morning.

“’Tisn’t I.” Morwen’s voice was soft with pity. “It’s in the ether you’ll find me. Though, were I once more in the living world, my spirit would be ever attuned to yours. You’d need only summon me, and I would come to you.”

Tears stung my eyes.

“You want what you once had, child. You’re lonely. You miss me, though I’m ever with you.”

“Who, then, is she?” My own voice startled me. No longer in the ether, speaking in silence with Morwen, I was speaking aloud, seemingly to no one, and those gold-flecked brown eyes were looking at me warily from across the pen.

I went to her and held out a hand. She took it, and we walked to the shearing stall.

“Let’s sit here,” I said hoping she would take comfort in the small space, the smell of hay and straw and fleece, the tools hanging neatly from nails hammered into the beams.

“Who are you, child? What do they call you?”

Still standing, she kicked the dirt.

“Alf,” I called.

He straightened and looked at me. “Yes, Meg.”

I pointed to him. “You see? He’s called Alf.” I laid my hand on my chest. “And I’m called Megge. What do they call you?”

She dug her toe into the dirt. Though Brighida and I had fashioned a pair of slippers for her, she would not wear them.

I leaned closer and took her hands. “Who is your mother?”

She looked around quickly, as if searching for her, and began to cry.

“Hush now.” I pulled her to me and held her tight. “Are you hungry, little one?” I brushed wisps of hair back from her brow.

She nodded.

“Alf,” I called. “Have you need of us?”

He shook his head and dumped a fresh bucket of water into the trough.

I took the child’s hand. “We’ll go help Brighida with the soup. And maybe you can tell me about your mother. And, perhaps, your sisters and—”

She screamed and pulled her hand from mine. Stunned, I look to Alf. He shrugged and shook his head.

I knelt before her and looked into her enormous, frightened eyes.

“What is it?” I wiped tears from her face.

She looked away.

What had I said? Mother and sisters. But I had said mother before and she hadn’t screamed. “Is it . . . that word?” I whispered, “Sisters?”

She recoiled as if I had struck her.

I held up my hands. “I won’t say it again. I won’t ever say it again.”

I gathered her to me, and she allowed me to hold her close. Her nose was running now, and I felt her wipe it on my shoulder. Laughter bubbled up as I remembered wiping my own nose on my sleeve, and my mother, aunt, and cousin all shouting, “Megge!”

I got to my feet and picked her up.

“Let’s go get something good.” Hefting her higher on my hip, I remembered what I had promised her earlier. “There’s cheese in the springhouse. Let’s go have some.”

She squirmed out of my arms and walked beside me. As we passed Alf, she took his hand and pulled him along too.

“Fine,” he said. “We’ll have cheese. And I shall call you Amice, for I know we shall be friends.”