After Harvestfest, life settled back into the slow, steady rhythm of the land, the kind of routine where the days blur together like sun-warmed wool.

  Martha soon realized that, despite her plain looks, Minnie was anything but ordinary. She was sharp beyond her years, quick to learn, with flawless memory and sound logic. Yet she refused to play with the other children, spending her hours instead watching clouds drift over the fields or staring toward the dark castle on the horizon. At first Martha thought her shy, or perhaps avoiding some bully. But Minnie spoke her mind easily enough and showed no trace of fear, so in the end they had to accept her simple explanation: “Thinking is more fun.”

  Her strange taste did not help. When the village girls returned from the meadows with wreaths of white and lilac, or soft gold and crimson, Minnie’s creations turned every head. She would weave marigolds with thistles, or braid pale pink clover with dull green weeds and the occasional blot of rusty orange, proud of the result while the others gaped. Once she even crowned herself with a ring of mustard-yellow petals and violet burrs so violent in contrast that Martha had to look away to stop a headache from forming. Had the children not been kept busy with chores, they might have found endless sport in teasing her.

  Minnie’s own tasks were many and always growing. She helped Martha about the house and often accompanied her on visits, tending to fevers, births, and aching bones. She fed the chickens, gathered eggs, and was eventually trusted to milk the goats. She carried lunch to Clim when he worked in the fields, and collected honey from the hives in the north field, moving carefully among the wild bees.

  And there was another peculiarity, one she thought she kept well hidden, and that was Tomash.

  She didn’t talk to him, not really. He was older. He was too handsome and too popular. Always surrounded by noise and motion: throwing hay with the older boys, racing his sisters to the stream, teasing the goats into headbutting each other. He’d nod at her sometimes, and once, when she dropped a basket of apples in the village square, he’d knelt and helped her gather them, saying “Here you go” when he finished. That was the longest he had spoken to her since the branding, and she was just as frozen now as she was then.

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  Mostly, she watched. From the edge of a fence, from behind the woodpile, from between the rows of drying linens. She knew the slope of his shoulders better than his voice. She learned his rhythms, when he passed the well, when he whistled, when he sat under the poplar tree after supper and threw pebbles at nothing.

  In her mind, they spoke often. She’d imagine him asking about her day, about the people she helped, about the way she stirred soup without spilling. She’d answer lightly, wisely, with a smile he’d find irresistible. He’d offer her something, a carved button, a feather, a freshly picked daisy, and she’d take it like it meant nothing, though she’d keep it hidden in her apron pocket for days.

  But in real life, Tomash never lingered. He had a dog to train. A fence to mend. A world that didn’t quite touch hers.

  Minnie didn’t mind. Watching in solitude came naturally to her.

  One day, five years after their branding, Minnie’d been walking the dirt road past the butcher’s house on some errand for Martha. She heard someone kicking the floor over the corner, and knew it was Tomash, even before she heard his voice.

  “I suppose it makes sense,” he was saying. “Your family’s got the orchard and nothing to do with it. My old man wants it like a starving goat. If we get married everybody wins.”

  There was a pause, then the low laugh of Nellie, the butcher’s daughter, all curls and dimples and confidence.

  “You don’t sound like you want to get married,” she teased.

  “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want it,” Tomash replied, his voice cracking suddenly.

  Minnie didn’t wait to hear the rest. She turned and ran, errand forgotten. The wind snatched at her hair and her breath hurt her chest. She didn’t stop until she reached home.

  Martha found her sobbing on the kitchen table, face hidden in her arms. She sat beside her and waited. When the sobs slowed, she handed Minnie a cloth and said nothing until Minnie took it.

  Minnie wiped her face, eyes puffy and red. “I know it was silly,” she whispered. “He never… he doesn’t even know me.”

  Martha tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Then why are you crying?” she said softly.

  Minnie looked at her, startled.

  Martha smiled without mirth. “It’s okay to be broken hearted over silly things,” she said, pushing a glass of water towards the girl. “The thing about hearts is, they break all the time. What matters is what grows in the cracks.”

  They sat together in silence for a while. Martha didn’t try to cheer her, and Minnie was grateful for it.

  Eventually, she laid her head in Martha’s lap, and Martha let her stay.