"Can I help, darlin'?"
"I keep trying to tell them who he was. I only knew him a day, Edgar. What right do I have."
"Every right." Edgar's voice was warm and slow. "You knew him on the worst day of his life and the last one. That's a thing his family will want to hear."
Rhoda looked at her husband a long moment. Then she picked up the pen again.
When she had finished, she folded the letter once. She sealed it with a careful drop of green wax. She wroteSpellbinders, for Mary, with careon the outside in her best hand, and laid it on the corner of the desk for the morning's first runner. Quill blinked once where he lay. He did not lift his head.
"There," Rhoda said, to the letter and to Quill and to herself.
Maeve Byrne came into the Hadwin kitchen with her plait done in a hasty rope down her back, pink cheeks from the cold air on the porch, and a bounce in her step that had not been seen in the house since she had arrived. She dropped Pepper down off her shoulder onto the windowsill above the sink. Pepper, who had been openly homesick and had not bothered hiding it, set her chin on her paws and looked out at the back garden with the slow misery of a cat whose departure had not yet been arranged for her.
Maeve poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot on the stove without asking, drank half of it standing up, and set the cup down.
"Mornin', loves."
"Maeve, sweetheart." Rhoda lifted Quill carefully off her lap and onto the warm chair beside her. "Sit down. Have somethin' to eat."
"I will. In a moment. I've a thought I'd like to share with the three of ye."
Edgar, who had been drinking his coffee at the long pine table with Honey at the far end and Rhoda across from him, set his cup back down on its saucer and waited politely for the thought.
The kitchen door opened again. Bramble came in first, ears forward, tail held with the comfortable authority. Oona Pierce followed him in a dressing gown the color of a plum, her hair down for the morning, with the unhurried gait of a woman who had timed her entrance to the second. She crossed to the stove. She poured herself a cup of coffee. She lowered herself into the chair beside Honey, and Bramble flowed up onto her lap, and Oona sat with her cup in her hand and looked at Maeve.
"Did I miss it?"
Maeve huffed, "not yet, but I'll go on."
Edgar took the both of them in. He refilled his own cup. "Ladies. What can we do for y'all this mornin'?"
Maeve drew in a small ceremonial breath. "Edgar. Rhoda. Honey. We've come to a decision."
"What sort of decision?" Rhoda put both her hands flat on the table.
"Pepper and I," Maeve said, "are stayin'."
Edgar paused with his coffee cup halfway to his mouth and lowered it back to its saucer. "Stayin'."
"In Cauldron Falls. I've been thinkin' on it. The cooperage in Galway is fallin' down, my brother is not fit to run it, and the customers can come find me out here as well as anywhere else. I had a look at the old barn out back yesterday afternoon. With a fresh roof and a new hearth she'd be a fine workshop. I'll be needin' the back bedroom, of course, but ye've made it nice enough that I've taken to it."
Honey raised her eyebrows and watched the silent volley happening between her parents' eyes.
"And Oona?" Rhoda turned to the other woman.
"Oh, my heart." Oona patted Bramble's head once. "I had been considering returning to my own quiet house. But Maeve and I have been talking, and a witch of my years does not get the chance, in any given century, to share a kitchen with family. I'llbe takin' the upstairs reading room. Bramble has had his eye on the rocker by the window since the Tuesday before last. I'll need the writin' desk for my correspondence."
"Well." Edgar's voice was the warm dignified Southern of a man whose whole life had been built on his welcome. "Maeve. Oona. That is wonderful news. Just wonderful."
"Isn't it." Maeve puffed out her chest.
"You have been a fine addition to this house. Both of you. The both of you." Edgar nodded.
"Such a fine addition," Rhoda said.
"The very finest," Honey said.
"I'll clear out the upstairs reading room this very mornin'." Rhoda's hands were still flat on the table. "I'll move the books to the parlor. The desk too. We'll bring up the smaller wardrobe from the attic. The light is good in the morning. You'll want a small carpet."
