Location:The Millford Road — The Halbrook Holding; The Stone Barn
Date/Time:TC1857.12.21 – TC1857.12.23
Wet dog and woodsmoke and the cold coming in under the door, and Nissa Halbrook knew before she was properly awake that Sedge had been out in the yard again and had come back in through the gap in the byre wall that she had meant to mend in the autumn and had not.
She lay still and listened for him. He was at the foot of Joss's bed, where he always ended up, and he was not settling.
That was new.
Sedge settled. Sedge was the dog who went in the water for nothing and came out and shook himself over whoever was nearest and went to sleep on their feet. He had settled every night of his life except the night at the turn of the year when the yard filled up and Pitch went out into it before anybody had moved, and she had not thought about that night on purpose for most of a year and found that her body had been thinking about it for her the whole time.
She got up.
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