Morgan gave her a brief hug. "Amy getting better is all the thanks I need." * * *

"You're working too hard, lass," Katrina Byrne said as Morgan came up the front walk.

Morgan shifted her heavy tote to her other shoulder. It was almost five o'clock. Luckily she'd had the foresight to ask her mother-in-law to be here this afternoon in case she didn't get back before dinner.

"Hi. What are you doing? Pulling up the carrots? Is Moira home?"

"No, she's not back yet," said Katrina, sitting back stiffly on her little stool. "I would have expected her by now. How was your day?"

"Hard. But in the end, good. The girl opened her eyes, and she recognized her mum."

"Good." Katrina's brown eyes looked her up and down. The older woman was heavyset, more so now than when Morgan had met her, so long ago. Katrina and her husband, Pawel, and her sister, Susan Best, had been among the handful of survivors of the original Belwicket, on the western coast of Ireland. Morgan had known her first as the temporary leader of Belwicket, then as her mother-in-law, and the two women had an understated closeness-especially now that they were both widows.

"You're all in, Morgan," Katrina said.

"I'm beat," Morgan agreed. "I need a hot bath and a sit-down."

"Sit down for just a moment here." Katrina pointed with her dirt-crusted trowel at the low stone wall that bordered Morgan's front yard. Morgan lowered her bag to the damp grass and rested on the cool stones. The afternoon light was rapidly fading, but the last pale rays of sunlight shone on Katrina's gray hair, twisted up into a bun in back. She wore brown cords and a brown sweater she'd knit herself, before her arthritis had gotten too bad.

"Where's Moira, then?" Morgan asked, looking up the narrow country road as if she expected to see her daughter running down it.