Unlike many children – specifically young girls – in my generation, I wasn’t brought up blind to the general facts of life and what is expected of a woman once she’s all grown up, only to have it dumped on my head like a basin of murky water the night I turned sixteen. That wasn’t to say I was brought up with loose morals. Certainly, I was not. Only, I was a curious, often bold little thing that would ask any question that came into her head and would, depending on how scandalous, be answered simply and unabashedly by my mother. Such as one which frequented my thoughts: “What is a good wife, Mother?”

It was a question much explored in my mind since the real possibility of being one had come more certainly about. Or more honestly, as soon as I got over my repulsion of the male sex, and they mine.

I would never say I was raised to be a wife. No more than any other girl was. I knew how to cook well enough, mend, dress a wound and how to face down the spiders that hid in the corners where a duster wouldn’t reach. But if I were tested on my housekeeping and cooking alone, I knew I would hardly be an ideal woman to marry. I’d spent many an hour of the day up a tree or wading through the surf when I could have been mastering the supreme art of the broom, delicate craft of cross-stitch, and flawless sheet tucking. I’d known that then and I knew that now, but back when I was a child, with every thought of love being one of fleeing away on a dark secret ship to some faraway place, worrying about whether I measured up simply didn’t cross my mind. But now, mostly grown up, how was I ever to be a choice life partner to a man who could do nearly every task and chore I knew, just as well if not better, and then some?

'Your cooking and cleaning are only a small part of being a good wife,' Mother had answered my question without pause, helping me plump, beat, twist, and knead our Pienday bread dough. 'To be a good wife, to a good man, a woman must be someone who will be a companion, a counselor, a kind, goodhearted, spirited girl with a heart and a brain as well as two hands and a womb.'

I supposed, seeing as I hardly saw anything but happiness between my parents, that this must be legitimate advice. But my mother was my mother. I was . . . me. Just me. Little more than a girl, with nothing really in the way of skill, or beauty, as far as I was aware. It wouldn’t really have been a problem, except that I was unable to deny that while I certainly needed Taelon, when it came to value, he most definitely didn’t need to rely on me.

It might well have been that my lack of practical use was of no concern to him. But it was a concern to me. Every evening he returned, tired or dirty, I felt guilty. He provided for us both, working whatever task or heavy chore was asked for as payment for whatever we needed, or just wanted. And I sat at home, twiddling my thumbs, cooking meals when they were necessary; gardening when they weren’t. He insisted none of it was any trouble. But it was a trouble to me.

Though, what could I really do when it came down to it? Cook a reasonably tasty chicken. Brew an acceptable cup of tea. Stitch a simple flower on a handkerchief. Dust where dusting was needed. But Taelon, I’d long since known, was not a man who measured every bit of a woman’s worth by the taste of what she put on the table. He had no need for embroidered flowers, and never batted an eye at a piece of dust clinging to the windowsill. What could I do, I wondered, to really play my part? How could I become someone in his life, and in my own, even, whose importance went further than love?

The world seemed a very lovely, pleasant place as we strolled down the path toward the village on market day. There was no particular reason I could tell. The sun shone no brighter than it ever did. The grass was just as lush and green as always. The sky was the same shade of blue.

But this day felt different. Hopeful. I didn’t often attend the market, because looking, and looking, and wanting, with no means to get, was maddening. But today I had a basket hanging on my arm, full of small things I’d made over the days leading up to it. Nothing wonderful, but more than nothing.

“It always feels very exciting, doesn’t it?” I asked Taelon, as I swayed my head from side to side to try and catch a glimpse of everything. Every market day, the village seemed to expand and become some new, busier place. Heliot Keeel stood next to his forge, arranging shiny new horseshoes on the walls, while Anhur laid out pots and ladles in the sun where their fresh gleam could be best seen to advantage. Caoimhe Eochaid had out a pretty array of quilts, each stitched out of many pieces of colored cloth. As I watched, she waved at me, a friendly smile stretching apart her wrinkled lips.

I waved back, surprised, and gladdened.

“Taelon!” We both turned when his name was called and saw Ulliam Brili hustling through the crowds, his whitish-blonde shock of hair glowing in the sunlight. He caught up to us, a bit out of breath.

“I thought I saw you there. Oh, hello. Who are you?” He gazed at me with a curious frown, which then shifted into recognition. “Oh, I am sorry. Ingrith, wasn’t it? I’ve no head for faces, you know. Even pretty ones. Taelon—” He lowered his voice, grey eyes flashing mysteriously. “Father hasn’t made it known yet, but our old sow, Grem, died two days ago, and he stayed up all night butchering her up. He did a fine job, too. You remember Grem, don’t you?”

“She died?” Taelon’s face fell.

“Yes, yes. Heartbreaking and all that, bless her soul.” Ulliam lowered his voice. “She’s a mighty fine piece, even all cut up. I’ll give you half if you take my place in the Feignt tomorrow evening.”

“How big was this sow?” I cut in.

“Oh, gigantic.” Ulliam hit Taelon companionably on the shoulder. “Ask Taelon. He’ll tell you. We rode her all over the island that first year he came here. A right monster. And she’s near still as big now. Half of her will get you through most of the winter. So, what do you say?”

Taelon looked torn. “I don’t know if I’d be able to eat her, after . . . everything.”

His friend groaned. “She threw you into a pile of shite, remember? She’d cry no tears over eating your dead body. Listen. There’s a girl. Oimmaka. New off one of the ships, all the way from Morleun.”

He rubbed his hands together sheepishly. “I might have promised I’d take her riding tomorrow afternoon. But then Father came at me and said he’d shifted my turn around. Harid already fixed us some horses. I’ll beg if I have to.”

Taelon and I exchanged a glance, and I bit down a smile.

“If you don’t want the pig, I can give you something else. Anything else. You’ve got to help me out. Have you even seen her? You'd understand if you had.” His gaze became dreamy. “Eyes, nearly black as midnight. Hair darker than that. Lips like fresh fruit.” He held his hands up to his chest and curved them generously. “Paps the size of—”

“Alright,” Taelon told him quickly. “I’ll do it. But I wasn’t supposed to begin until next week, so you owe me.”

“I do. And I’ll not forget it.” He was already turning around to run back the other way. “Be there five hours after noon exactly. Mind you don’t forget!”

“That was a very generous thing to do.” I took his hand. “You didn’t have to say yes.”

“I know.” He smiled bashfully. “But Ulliam is my friend. And I suppose,” he avoided my eyes, “I suppose, I know what it’s like. To yearn for someone.”

“What is the Feignt?” I asked as we resumed walking. “I’ve heard it mentioned, but I don’t believe I actually know what it is.”

“You didn’t have them in Saje? Feignt hunts. We dive down to the seafloor and bring up the oysters and mussels, and flatfish. Whatever we’re told to find.”

“You’ve done it before?”

He nodded. “Every summer, as long as the water is warm.”

“Isn’t it terribly dangerous?”

“I learned to hold my breath.”

“How?”

“We should see Grieda,” he said, running his tongue over his lips. “She’ll want my help, probably.”

“That reminds me. Why didn’t you take him up on his offer? Half a monster sow would have been very useful this winter,” I reproached him.

“I don’t think I could eat an animal I knew,” he said regretfully. “My brother and I used to have fun with her when we first came. I’m fond of her, I suppose. Or at least, of the sentiment those memories of her carry.”

“Fond?” I laughed. “Even though she—”

“She didn’t mean to do it,” he excused and then pointed out a stall opposite us. “Gùndel has taken over Rollo’s dress shop. I didn’t know she could sew, did you?”

“I’m not sure I know who Gùndel is,” I said, watching the woman intently. Her hair was the finest gold, thick, and glittering. Her eyes were a dewy honey brown. Her figure was thin and dignified. She might have been beautiful if her nose hadn’t been turned up in disdain at every person who passed.

“You do not?” His eyebrows rose. “I thought you would have known her better than I. She was on the same ship as you.”

“She was?” I doubled back to take her in once again, trying to picture her as one of the failing shadows who lived the nightmare of the ship with me. Was she one of those who had sung, before the will to do so had been stripped away? Was she one of the girls who’d had a mother, or a grandmother taken away and thrown into the storm? Or was she one of those who had huddled next to the wall and prayed with all her soul to be saved, all alone?

I shivered as our eyes met. There was no sign that she recognized me. But we recognized something, I knew. A shadow, perhaps. Something dark lingering where other shadows faded. She turned away and pressed her hand down a bolt of grey spun cloth.

“She’s a weaver,” I murmured, remembering suddenly three fair-haired girls who’d always sat farthest from me in the ship’s hold. I couldn’t recall their faces, but their accents came back to me. Gatchan. Gatchan women were known to be the best weavers in Lower Half.

But her sisters were nowhere to be seen.

She didn’t mock the villagers’ quaintness, I recognized. She mocked their happiness.

Taelon took my arm and guided me away. Away from the shadow the dress shop cast on the ground, and back into the morning sunlight.

I was cheered up by the sight of the Apiarist, Tadgh Muadun, and his newlywed wife, Bronagh, selling their honey.

“Do you want to see them?” Taelon asked.

“I do. We’re clean out of honey.”

“Then I can—”

“No, no. I can take care of it,” I assured him. “Is there somewhere you wished to go?”

“Well . . .” He stared off in the direction of a group of young men, eagerly waving him over to them near the pottery stand.

“Go on. I’ll meet you after,” I urged.

With a kiss on my cheek, he bounced off in their direction. One of the youths slung an arm around his neck, dragging him around in a circle before he was fought off, and then another jumped on them, cuffing both their heads in a roughly affectionate way.

Men were interesting.

I approached the honey booth, and Bronagh smiled invitingly at me.

“Ingrith. Hello.”

“These combs are beautiful,” I complimented earnestly, picking one up and holding it gingerly as I admired the golden windows of honey.

“Tis the bees that did all the work,” Tadgh said proudly, grinning at his wife. “They labored hard this year.”

“They did,” Bronagh agreed. She ran her hand over the slight hill protruding from her dress. “And such a good harvest couldn’t have come at a better time. We’ll be needing our cupboards full come winter if I’m anything like my sister."

“It must be very exciting,” I supposed.

“I imagine the first is always exciting. And frightening.” She blushed and rearranged a basket of honey jars. “Would you like some?”

“Of the golden honey? Oh, no I couldn’t. Nothing I have would come even close to payment for it.” I held up my basket for emphasis. “But I will take some of the dark if I can.”

“Take a jar of the gold.” Tadgh pushed a fat, clay jar into my hands, his freckled face beaming. “Don’t say no. I’m happy. It pleases me to see others the same. Here. For your shadows.”

“Ingrith is hardly unhappy, Tadgh.” Bronagh laughed merrily, placing a dark hand on her husband’s arm. Her eyes shone as she gave me another, more pointed smile. “She’s right glowing. You and Taelon are getting along well."

I touched the back of my hand to my cheek, wondering if there was a chance I really was glowing. I was briefly mortified. Of course, I’d heard some women mention a change, but surely it couldn’t be that obvious?

“Take the honey, Ingrith.” Bronagh’s warm hands encircled my own, holding the pot. She glowed, I realized. It was more than just sunlight. There was a golden hue to her skin that caught the light and kept it. “I’ll consider it well paid for if you would honor me by stitching a quilt square.” She touched her belly. “For the babe, when he’s born.”

I was stunned into choked silence. Only a mother’s friends were ever asked to make a square for her to stitch into a quilt for her child. The blanket that would stay with them forever and keep them warm in their first months.

“I-I—” I stuttered. “Would you really like me to?”

“It would bring me much joy.” She squeezed my hand. “You are a part of all of us now, Ingrith. A part of the island.”

“Then, if you mean it, I . . . I would be most happy to.” My voice was gruff, and I cleared it, blinking away glad tears. A part of the island. A part of them. Another home. A new place to belong

“How did you get that?” Taelon asked me in wonder when he and I reunited, and I showed him the pot of wonderful golden honey.

“I traded for it of course,” I answered.

He smiled at me fondly.

“What?” I asked. “What is it?”

“Your eyes are shining.”

“Are they?” I grinned. “I suppose they must be. I’m ever so very glad in this moment.”

“Why?” He cocked his head to the side. “Did something happen?”

“Not really.” I tucked a flyaway strand of my hair behind my ear and flushed. “I just feel like . . . I suddenly feel like I live here. Properly. Like I am no longer lost.”

Taelon untucked my hair, his fingers lingering against my jaw. I enjoyed how he looked at me. As though I were beautiful, and everything about me was something precious he wanted to keep forever. Then he kissed me, in a sort of heated, devouring way, like my lips were slathered in that fine honey and he must take every bit for himself.

I smiled at him, feeling pleasantly weak-kneed, and giddy. “Your eyes are shining now too,” I said, laughing a bit, delighting in the two points of rosy color that appeared on his cheeks. His eyes were bluer than a sapphire, I was sure, though I’d never seen one. They had to be. Never in the world had I ever seen such a beautiful blue.

“It makes me glad,” he said. “The thought that this is your place now. And that I might be a part of it.”

“I’m sure you are the biggest part.” Someone walked past, and I heard him whisper something to his companion. I should have felt shy, standing here with Taelon, feeling, and no doubt looking, foolishly in love. But I wasn’t really. They could laugh and gossip. It wouldn’t change the fact that I was happy. Wonderfully happy. And if I had any say in the matter, I would stay that way.

“It’s true that Seaggis has become a home for me, but you, you are the heart of it.” I broke our gaze, abashed by my unfettered tongue, but determined to get across what I wanted to say. “If my eyes are shining, of all the reasons, having someone like you to love, and be loved by is by far the greatest one.”

“I—” His voice sounded broken, frustrated. He reached between the small space separating us and took my hand. I could feel the thumping of his pulse, and my own sped up to lope at the same pace. “I wish,” he said, and the words came out breathy and clumsy like he couldn’t stop to think them out first. “I wish we'd never gone into the village, Ingrith. I wish . . . I wish we’d stayed home.”

So did I. Nothing seemed better right then than the thought of home, where the minimal distance between us could be abandoned. Here, in revealing sunlight, with any number of eyes, it might have been a physical bridge, with me on one end and he on the other.

“We’ll just say hello to Grieda,” I said. “Then we’ll go.”

We came upon Grieda very quickly. She was easy to spot, with a pretty cow tied to a stake beside her meat stall. She saw us immediately, folded brow smoothing over in relief. She waved us over and we pushed through the cluster of customers to reach her meat stall.

“Thank Sunah.” She grabbed Taelon’s arm. “I need your help. My nieces are driving me to distraction, and I must have my best head on while I try to sell this heifer. Come, children!” She clapped her hands sharply and her three little nieces appeared at her feet, eyes shining, plaits askew.

“You are the only person alive I think they listen to. Take them somewhere. Anywhere. I don’t care.” She picked the shortest one up and planted her in Taelon’s arms. The other ones shrieked in delight and jumped up and down around him in wild circles. “Just keep them out of my tent for the next half hour. I’ll give you five dozen eggs.” Her browned face was worn. “Six dozen. I’ll give you six dozen. And a side of ham.”

“But—” I tried to protest as he was shoved away, glancing back at me helplessly.

“And you, Ingrith. Yes. Good.” She wiped a hand across her head, leaving bloody streaks behind. “I need you too. Get behind that counter and watch that no one pilfers anything.” She slapped a switch into my palm. “Hit them with this when they do. If they persist, take my knife and stab them.”

One quickly learned there wasn’t any saying no to Grieda D’onsé.

“A cow for a chicken?” Grieda fumed at the woman standing nervously next to the meat counter. “I have chickens already! More than a dozen of them. If you’re going to put an offer in, at least make it worth something to me. Next!”

All the customers interested in venison, prime beef, sausages, and bacon had already come and gone. Relieved from my duty as a knuckle striker, I’d hoped to sneak away and find Taelon, but before I could even take one step away, Grieda had grabbed the back of my dress and hauled me back, replacing the switch with a piece of sail-cloth and a charcoal stick.

“Can you write? Yes? Wonderful. Write down their names and their offers,” was her order, and I had no choice but to obey.

The chicken woman patted down the handkerchief covering her hair like she was affronted, but too afraid to cause a scene. She stepped back unhappily, and a man took her place.

“Argall.” Grieda placed her hands on her sharp hips. “What do you have to offer me? And please don’t say a chicken. Or a pig. I’ve had quite enough of them.”

He scratched at his thick red beard for a moment in a show of consideration and then crossed his hairy arms across his chest. “Three sacks of flour.”

I wrote down: Argall-III sacks of flour, beneath, Crougha-XII bushels of carrots. I’d omitted the lady with the chicken. Then I sighed heavily and dropped my chin into my hand. It was terribly hot. And horribly boring. Mother had told me that a common girl such as myself with the ability to read and write was a lacking talent. I’d been given no formal schooling, after all. I was to be grateful that I’d been taught. But now, oh, how I longed that the many hours I’d spent bent over the fireplace, scribbling letters down on the hearth in soot had never happened.

There were a few more offers after this. Two baskets of fish from Pathedra. A new pair of shoes from Rhi Alstering. A goat from Bridgit Halph. A colt from Harid’s father. A charm to ward off Lulodun, if chance should find you astray from your path in the forest, from Waeghin Foinnlin.

At last, all the offers had been made, and the crowd dispersed. My hands were stained and aching from holding the charcoal. My back was aching from sitting bent over the parchment. My head was aching from the sun. I dipped my cleanest finger into my pot of honey and placed it on my tongue, feeling it melt sweetly in my mouth and fill me with new energy.

I sat up, heart beating as an idea was conceived.

“Did you get them all down?” Grieda asked, and I nodded, letting her take the parchment from me. She sighed and shook her head. “Why in Sunah’s name would anyone offer me hair ribbons?”

“Why are you trading her?” I stroked my palm down the smooth side of the heifer’s neck. She blinked at me, long eyelashes framing gentle, innocent eyes. “She seems perfectly lovely.”

“My business is in meat. Flesh. Not milk. And she’ll be a milk cow.” Grieda folded up the parchment and tucked it into her skirt. “Why keep an animal I won’t use?”

“Couldn’t you milk her? Only, it might be nice. To have milk, cheese, and cream without having to go out and trade something else for it.”

“No time. And I'm caring for my brother's cow already. A fine thing that’s already been bred.”

I clenched my hands into fists, sucking in a breath of courage. “I’d like to put in an offer.”

She stared at me. “You? Where would you get the feed? And there’d need to be a barn, and a pasture built beside.”

“You would keep her, where she is with you.” I bounced my hands at my sides in excitement. “I would milk her, and use it for cream, and butter, and cheese, and then I’d have something to trade with.”

“Oh, I see.” She raised a sharp eyebrow. “And what’s in it for me?”

“I would split the profits with you, of course. And we’d both have all the milk and such whenever we wanted, as long as we wanted. What do you think?”

“It’s not bad,” she said simply. “I suppose it’s not at all bad, compared to some of the other daft offerings been thrown at me.” She crossed her arms. “I’ll give it some thought, and then I’ll let you know.”

The sun was beginning to settle by the time Grieda let me go and I managed to track Taelon down. It hovered just below the tree line, turning the sky around it a pale red, and streaking lavender clouds through the darkening blue.

Just inside the fence surrounding the field, I saw him, sitting cross-legged amongst the long, sweet-smelling green grass, his black hair dappled with the late afternoon colors, and small, pretty wildflowers woven through the curls.

I stopped and watched as one of Grieda’s nieces fitted a crown of red campion, buttercups, and sea aster over his head. He dipped it down obligingly so she could reach. The three sisters clapped their hands, proud of their hard work.

Then he caught sight of me. I saw him flush and quickly tug the crown off, to the girls’ vocal disappointment.

“Do you know your way back home?” he asked them, and they all clamored to reply that they did; quite well. They weren’t children after all. Quite grown up, and all that.

“Run on back then,” he prompted, and they did as they were told, scampering through the grass and down the path, bouncing, skipping, and giggling, with their hands full of buttercups.

“I see you’ve been kept occupied.” I picked a sprig of red campion out of his hair and twirled it between my fingers, resting my basket on my hip. He reddened again and lay the flower circlet over my own head, weaving a few locks of my hair around it to keep everything in place.

“It suits you better than it does me.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” I didn’t take it off either. I took his hand and pulled him toward the path.

“What did you have in there?” he asked me, staring at the basket in my hand. “I meant to ask you how you managed to get that honey.”

“A friend’s generosity and a favor for the future.” I thought back on Bronagh’s request with a warm heart. “But there were hedge berries. I found some bushes in the forest. An early crop. I gave them to Áine to make into a preserve.” I slipped back the cloth covering the basket and lifted out a smaller jar. “She gave me two jars of strawberry preserves. I thought it would be nice, to make this loaf of bread—” I pulled out a round, golden loaf, “—more interesting. I traded the second jar of preserves for it.”

Taelon's dark eyebrows flew up, then drew together, almost frowning. “I could have gotten them for you. If you’d asked.”

“Why, of course, I know that,” I said. “It isn’t that I didn’t think you would. Only, I wanted to get them myself. Just even to know I can.”

“Oh.” His expression smoothed over, and his lips pulled into a shining smile. “I would never doubt that you could. I am not sure there is anything you couldn’t do, if you wanted.”

I felt my heart rise at his praise, and the rest of the steep walk up the cliff went by in a blur.