Marga arrived on the second day with a pack slung over one shoulder and a scar running from her left ear to her collarbone that she wore like jewelry.
Brynn saw her coming up the estate road and let out a whoop that damn near rattled the windows, and then Brynn was laughing, and then Marga was laughing, and it was all very jolly, and Katarina stood on the steps and watched her mother become a completely different person in the span of ten seconds.
The others came in ones and twos over the next three days. A woman named Dagna who was missing two fingers on her left hand and didn't seem to notice, and a pair of twins called Pia and Lotte who finished each other's sentences and shared a single expression of cheerful menace. Then there was Torrens, who carried a spear taller than Brynn and hadn't said a word to anyone since arriving.
Katarina respected that enormously.
