"As all suffer. I t's one long test of faith, readying you for what you were meant to be."

"And what's that?"

"Find out."

184"Why can't I know now? Why can't ye just tell me?

"Because you're stubborn, too. Y ou still refuse to understand, even when the truth is all around you in everything you see from the depths of the earth to the stars in the heavens."

All the anger went from me, and my throat tightened with grief. "I don't want to be stubborn, Lilybet. I want to understand.""Y ou will find all the pieces, and God will bring them to light."

"When will that be?"

"In his time."

I t didn't take me long to find all the flowers I needed, and Fagan was where I 'd left him, peering through the vines. "She's still inside. She's stoked up the fire. See the smoke?"

I sat and worked quickly, making splits in the stems and tucking others through until I had made a garland for her hair. I kept thinking about all Lilybet had said to me, making sense of none of it. I looked at my handiwork and hoped Bletsung Macleod would like it better than Mama had. "I t's done."

"I t's a fine thing, Cadi." His words pleased me enough to make me blush. "Did your ma teach ye how to do it?"

185"Granny taught me."

Gathering our courage, we went out into the open at the base of Dead Man's Mountain and approached thesmall cabin. "Helllloooo!" Fagan called and I held the wreath so that Bletsung Macleod would see it. When she didn't come out of her house, Fagan called out bolder,"Heellllooo!"

My heart jumped. "The curtain moved."

"Come on then. Don't hang back." Fagan motioned to me as he walked toward the house. "We brung ye summat, ma'am!"

"I don't want nothin'. Go away!"

"We're just being neighborly!"

"I said, `Go away!' "

My shoulders drooped, but Fagan stood his ground, jaw tense. "We ain't leaving until ye come out and talk to us!" He sounded more like his father than I had ever heard him before.

"Fagan," I whispered, mortified. There was enough on my head without him making it worse.

"I told ye to stay away, Cadi Forbes, and now ye come back and bring this rude boy with ye! Git on! Gitout o' here!"

Fagan blushed dark red. "I ain't meaning be rude, ma'am, but we - Cadi and me, that is - need to talk to ye. We don't mean no harm." He nudged me. "T ell her!"

186"We mean ye no harm, ma'am!" I called out to confirm his declaration. "And we brung ye summat."

After a long moment, Bletsung Macleod opened the door and came out onto the front porch. She was now dressed in a worn dark skirt and faded blue shirtwaist, her hair gathered into a hasty braid. "Why can't ye leave well enow alone, Cadi Forbes?" she said in a despairing tone. "Why can't ye stay away from this godforsaken place?"

"I gotta put the pieces together." I knew as I spoke that it made no sense to anyone, not even me. Fagan looked atmequizzically, but didn't say nothing.

Bletsung Macleod stayed in the shadows, standing near a post. She reminded me of the doe, ready to bound away at the first hint of danger. And it seemed odd, her being growed up and all. Seeing her like that made all my own fears seep away, and I was filled instead with a strange tenderness and pity toward her."She's afeared of us, Fagan."

He sensed it too. "We'll go slowly."

As we came closer, she glanced quickly toward the forest, her movements tense of a moment. I looked toward the forest, too, wondering if she had seen something like a bear or a painter, but nothing was there out of the ordinary that I could see. So Fagan 187and I kept acomin' ahead until we was standing to the right of her front steps. I laid the flower garland on the porch at her feet and then backed away.

Bending, she picked it up and looked at it. She touched the purple flower petals, then gazed at me, perplexed. "Thank ye, Cadi."

I t sounded almost a question. Her gaze moved to Fagan, studying him with a faint frown. "What be your name, lad?"

"Fagan, ma'am. Fagan Kai."

I f anything, she grew more wary. "Brogan Kai's son?"

"Y es, ma'am.""Y e dunna look like him."

"No, ma'am. People say I look more like my ma."

Tilting her head, she studied him. "Aye, 'tis true. Y e have your mother's eyes." Her mouth tipped sadly.

"How be Iona these days?"

"She don't complain."

"Reckon she wouldn't." Bletsung Macleod glanced toward the forest again and then stepped forward, one slender, work-worn hand resting lightly on the rail. "She got what she wanted." She sighed and looked down at us again. She didn't ask why we had come. She wasn't going to make it that easy.

188Fagan forgot all about the sin eater. "How do ye come by knowing my mother?" "Everybody knows everybody in this valley." Her voice was heart-weary.

"I never heard of ye until a few months ago.

I wondered if Fagan knew how belligerent he sounded.Closing her eyes, Bletsung Macleod lowered her head.

"Why ye saying things to hurt her?" I whispered fiercely.

Fagan's face jerked with pain. "I ain't trying to hurt her. I just want to know the truth." He looked up at the woman on the porch. "People say ye might have killed your own ma and pa."

She raised her head and looked at him, blue eyes dark with pain. "That so? What else do they say?"

Convinced Fagan had made a fine mess of our visit, I clutched his shirtsleeve, hoping the feel of my hand might give him pause. I t didn't.

"Some say ye're crazy."

She just stood silent now, looking between us.

"Cadi here says ye're a bee charmer, and she thinks ye might know summat about the sin eater."

189I could feel Bletsung Macleod's gaze fix upon me then. Troubled, she searched my face. "How old be ye,Cadi?"

"T en, ma'am."

"Are ye ill? Do ye have a tumor or summat that's drawing the life from ye?"

"No, ma'am."

"Then go on home and forget about the sin eater."

"I can't."

Fagan stepped forward. "She has to talk to him, and so do I ."

"He won't let ye near him.

"I have to ask him summat."

Her eyes flashed. "Questions! Sticking your nose in where it's none of your business. And what for? So ye con carry more rumors like your folks? Well, I won't help ye!" She started to turn away.

"I reckon if ye won't help us, we'll find the sin eater for ourselves," Fagan said, chin juttingBletsung Macleod turned to us again and craned forward so that the sun shone on her 'ace. She did look half crazed. "Y ou leave him be! Stop hunting him like he was an animal with no feelings!" She looked square atme."For the love of mercy, Cadi Forbes, he's taken the sins of your granny on himself. Y e near got done in by a painter once, 190dinna ye? And he would have taken all your sins on him then, too. Can't ye be thankful for him and leave the mon be?"

Covering my face with my hands, I sobbed. Fagan put his arms around me, holding me close like Iwan sometimes did. "Y e've no call to talk to her like that and make her cry!"

"Y ou're her friend, Fagan Kai. Make her see reason,"

she said wearily and went back inside the house. Both of us heard the bar drop heavily into place.

Fagan tried to cheer me up on the long walk home, but some feelings have to ease on their own. Y ou can't talk them out or forget. Sometimes you can't even make sense of them. Y ou just gotta walk on through.

I was not of a mind for hunting with Fagan. I didn'tcare to fish or pick flowers or do anything else but what my mind was determined to do. So when we come to Kai Creek, I told him I was going home.

As I walked through the woods, it came to me like a blinding flash of summer lightning: The only way Bletsung Macleod could've known about the painter was if the sin eater himself had told her.

Fagan went back with me three days running 191and then balked and went hunting. "She don't know nothing about the sin eater."

I followed after him for a while, hoping to change his mind, and then went back, taking up my vigil again behind the curtain of mountain laurel. I dozed off in the heavy moist warmth of the afternoon. When I woke, I saw Bletsung Macleod leaning out her window. I moved closer, wondering what she was doing talking to thin air.

Then I saw him. A man, sitting below her window.

Bletsung Macleod didn't look down at him, and he sat low down, head bowed. Was it a hat he was wearing? No, it was a hood!My heart quickened, and I slunk along the edge of dense greens, careful not to set anything moving.

Bletsung looked out toward the mountains as she spoke. Though I was able to get closer, I was too far off to hear anything. She spoke and then listened. I wished I could hear what they were saying to each other. They seemed in no hurry to end their conversation No one had died, so it was for certain she wasn't telling him he was needed at other funeral.

Heart thumping, I watched, intrigued by their camaraderie, wondering at it.

192Bletsung Macleod stopped talking and listened a long while. Her lips moved again, and then she leaned further out the window, reaching down to him. He raised his hand toward hers. Their fingers were the barest inches apart when he withdrew. He stood and started quickly toward the forest. I saw he was slipping away again, and it was no telling how long it'd be before he came back now he knew I was watching for him.

"Sin Eater!" I cried out. I was through the vines and running. "Sin Eater! Wait! Wait!" The man ran."Cadi, no!" Bletsung Macleod intercepted me, catching me before I reached the woods. "Cadi, no.

Y ou mustn't . . ." T ears were running down her cheeks.

"Oh, child, child. . ."

Struggling and kicking, I gained my freedom and ran into the shadows, chasing after him, crying out for him to stop, to wait for me.

He would not.

I kept running, pushing through the tangled branches until I was utterly lost in the rhododendrons. Out of breath, I stopped and looked around me. I listened, hoping to hear some sound from him as he climbed higher, hiding among the crags above me. Nothing.

193"Sin Eater, where are you?" My lungs were burning, my heart racing.

Silence.

"I ain't going back until I talk to you!" I kept on, forcing my way through the snarls of green. Higher and higher I climbed, crying, lost and frightened. And determined.

Panting, I stopped again. "Please. I have to talk toyou!" A streak of white lit the gray clouded sky, and my skin tingled. The patter of rain splattered the leaves and thunder rolled. "Sin Eater! Sin Eater!"

"I 'm here."

I turned sharply toward the sound of his voice lost somewhere in the heavy rhododendrons. He was close, so close. "I can't see you." I pushed my way through several branches.

"Y e can talk from where ye stand."

I stood still but a moment. "I left some preserves out for ye on Granny's grave, but ye never came back."

"I dinna know of your kindness toward me.

"They ain't there anymore. Fagan broke he jar. I 'll get ye more if ye want. Mama has a shelf of jars. She won't miss one."

"No, don't do that. I 'm not in want."

No, he had fresh bread and honey from 194Bletsung Macleod. "Jam goes good with bread."I heard the rustling of branches and knew he was the same distance from me as he had been before. Each step I took, he was a step further off, maybe two.

Sorrow gripped me. "Y e talk to Bletsung Macleod.

Why won't ye talk to me?"

"We're talking, ain't we?" There was gentle humor in the words.

His voice came from another direction now. Turning again, I kept on. I paid no heed to the direction I was going, and only vaguely noticed that the going was easier. "Would ye take my sins away, Sin Eater?"

"Y e know I will, Cadi. When the time comes. Unless I 'm gone. Then there'll be another to take my place."

"I meannow ."

"I t ain't done that way, darlin'."

I stopped, heartbroken. "But why not? What con I do to show I 'm sorry? I 'd do anything." He was silent so long, I thought he had left me there alone. "Is there no forgiveness for one such as me, Sin Eater? What con Ido to make up for what I did?"

"Y e con do right from here on, Cadi. That's what ye do. Y e help other people without thinking about the cost to yourself. Y e live your life to please God Almighty.