Tamsin was forever enchanted with Grandmother’s

coracle, the slight vessel she saw as part willow,

part hemp, part – what else? Air, she thought.

With only a single broad oar, it carried

them gracefully, inexplicably, away up the

millstream, away from two busy, often bickering

families. Grandmother Cat, in rowing and foraging,

would tell Tamsin stories of her family, the Rowans,

and Tamsin would ask as many questions as she could.

Given his opinions, Tamsin was glad Mr. Briggs did not

know of the small rowan-wood crosses

bound with red thread that Grandmother Cat

had made. Tamsin herself had gone up the ladder in

the barn and tucked them atop the beam

to protect the lives sheltered under that roof. 

She was fairly certain Uncle Simon did not know about them,

either. There had been no stormy discussion.

Tamsin knew to bridle her unruly thoughts,

unless away from the house with Grandmother Cat,

or with Papa. Or sometimes, very carefully, with James in the barn.

Or as long as possible, keep her reasoning and imagining

quite to herself about mysteries like the coracle,

or Papa’s sundial-compass that held earth

and heaven together as one, or Uncle Isaac’s

fiddle music, so astonishing it might slip over into magic

at any moment and lift her in the air to dance.

Tamsin studied the deadly, useful nubs in the little sack that

was now hers. This world, rowan trees and millstream,

swirled round her head and made her dizzy.

Whatever would it be, to be a rowess?

Grandmother Cat laid her hand over Tamsin’s.

“My dear, the moon is full tonight. Tide will

rise in the millpond.” She nodded downstream.

“Go and walk round once more, as we did. See what

you see. Go to the mill, think of your Papa.”

Now spread across the hillside was a vast drift of

tiny, uncountable stars. Here was the yarrow. 

Tamsin thought, if ever she could see what a single breath

looked like, it would look just like a yarrow flower.

Grandmother Cat moved, adrift herself, toward

a patch of fine white. Tamsin followed, and there they

wandered, cutting and gathering flowers, stems,

and leaves into a basket. At last Grandmother said,

“Breathe, Tamsin. What do you smell?”

“Papa,” Tamsin said, “I miss you more than

I can say. More than all the words in scripture.

But Uncle Nat is helping us, Papa. We’ll go to his house

to keep an inn and a tavern. Mother and I will

look after each other and Phebe, I promise.

“And here, Papa, I made this wreath for you

from the daisies of the angel Michael.”

With spirit, she added, “He threw a dragon out of heaven!”

Taking clam rake and buckets, Tamsin walked the

shore road to the cove, birdsong in trees all the way.

She wanted to go where land and water lapped one another,

and dig there. Or she might sit a while in the pine scrub first, where

she could not be seen, or push in among the bayberries.

Instead, the first thing she did was to put her face into

the roses now spread by the road at the cove.

Their scent brought Christopher so close as to be unbearable.

Sunset was long past and the tavern dim,

but for the fire at the hearth and the

glow of a betty lamp at the bar. 

Mr. Lamb faced that way, though his wandering eye

contemplated the hearth. Tamsin could always tell which

of Mr. Lamb’s eyes he attended to, and just now

she saw a shift from his eye considering

the fire to his eye aimed at the bar. 

Curious, she turned.

In this tidal place, thick grasses rooting in

patches of mud shallows, no sound would carry far.

The salt marsh, water, earth, and grass,

would be soft and compassionate as a breast, willing

to receive a cry of any sort, anguish or prayer.