She cocked her head, and continued, “You said Lakewalker folks’ groundsense doesn’t come in all at once, and not at all when they’re younger. Maybe this is just something you should have had all along, that got delayed. Or maybe it’s something you should have now, growing right on time.”

“There’s a new thought.” He lay back, frowning at the blameless evening sky. His life was full of new things, lately. Some of them were new problems, but he had to admit, a lot of the tired, dreary, old problems had been thoroughly shaken out. He began to suspect that it wasn’t only the breaking of his right arm that was triggering this bizarre development. The farmer girl was plowing his ground, it seemed. What was that phrase? Breaking new land. A very literal form of ground transformation. He blinked to chase away these twisting notions before his head started to ache.

“So, that’s twice,” said Fawn, pursuing the thought. “So it can happen, um, more than once, anyhow. And it seems you don’t have to be unhappy for it to work. That’s real promising.”

“I’m not sure I can do it again.”

“That’d be a shame,” she said in a meditative tone. But her eyes were merry. “So, try it again next time and we’ll see, eh? And if not, as it seems you have no end of ingenuity in a bedroll, we’ll just do something else, and that’ll be good, too.” She gave a short, decisive nod.

“Well,” he said in a bemused voice. “That’s settled.”

She flopped down again, nestling in close, hugging him tight. “You’d best believe it.”

To Fawn’s gladness they lingered late in the glade the next morning, attempting to repeat some of last night’s trials; some were successful, some not. Dag couldn’t seem to induce his ghost hand again—maybe he was too relaxed? — which appeared to leave him someplace between disappointment and relief. As Fawn had guessed, he found other ways to please her, although she thought he was trying a bit too hard, which made her worry for him, which didn’t help her relax.