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terrible clank that Gabriel felt in his teeth. “You’re supposed to be working out on the dikes, searching for breaches and protecting your village. The tide is unrelenting, Gabriel, and the threats, the real threats, are many.”
    Gabriel muttered a curse.
    “Father—”
    “Enough!” Basil held up the horseshoe with his tongs, twisting it back and forth in the air to inspect it. “There. Another perfect shoe. Gabriel, bring the horse around to the …” He waved a gloved finger toward the back entrance.
    Gabriel, silenced, walked toward the large doors on the back wall, past the boy operating the shoulder-high bellows used to fan the hell-hot fire that Basil had kept alive for four years running, burning coal harvested from the marshes. The fire was hot enough to melt metal, and the marbled, pocked skin that covered Basil’s forearms and neck proved it was hot enough to melt flesh, too. The boy, drenched and sinewy, looked up at Gabriel through dusty, tired eyes, slowing the bellows for a moment.
    “Attend!” Basil shouted at the boy. “Fire!”
    “Monsieur,” said the boy. He inhaled deeply, rose to his toes, and extended the bellows-handle over his head, thenthrust downward to the floor, sending oxygen-rich air into the forge to feed the devilish heat.
    Gabriel pushed open the back door. There were two horses in the courtyard, Eulalie and one of Notary Leblanc’s massive workhorses, Nog. He was a tall horse with colossal feet, bred to work in the hayfields. His back was speckled black and gray with a shorn mane and cropped tail. He whinnied and shook his massive head with a sputter. Gabriel grasped Nog’s rein and led him lumbering into the shop, where Basil stood with a freshly shaped shoe. Gabriel stroked Nog’s nose while Basil raised his back leg and held the shoe against his hoof. “Perfect,” he said, drawing a nail from the pocket of his apron.
    “At least someone here knows what he’s doing,” came the voice from the doorway. There stood Jean-Baptiste Leblanc, the notary’s son, tall and expensively dressed, the glowing forge lengthening his cheekbones and his shadow. Jean-Baptiste was still unmarried, despite his good looks and his family’s wealth. With a dozen horses in their employ, the Leblancs were Basil’s best customers.
    “Master Leblanc,” said Basil. “Welcome.” He motioned to a bench at the side of the shop, a motion that Jean-Baptiste ignored.
    Gabriel was wary of Jean-Baptiste. He knew that Jean-Baptiste, like every man in Pré-du-sel, desired Evangeline.Even now, just hours before their wedding, Gabriel knew that Jean-Baptiste coveted Evangeline, and he fixed his eyes on his rival. Tomorrow, he told himself. Tomorrow she will be mine, and there will be no more threats from him, or anyone.
    “I’m sorry, Monsieur Lajeunesse,” said Jean-Baptiste, indulgently enunciating each sound in Basil’s name. “I’m afraid I have been eavesdropping unintentionally. Did I hear something about ships? My apologies, but what nonsense is this?”
    “Just nonsense, as you say,” said Basil. “There are no ships. Today is not the day.”
    Jean-Baptiste pulled his head back and squinted at Gabriel. “I see,” he said. He turned back to Basil.
    Basil wiped his brow with his scarred forearm. “Come, Gabriel. Hold Nog’s bridle and steady him. We must shoe this horse for young Leblanc.”

eva

    We’ve been driving up Boot Cove Road for fifteen minutes now, or maybe more, and we’re not really driving anyway, it’s more like speeding, heading east, listening to an old Led Zeppelin song. Gabe wants to get to Quoddy Head before sunset so we can watch the stars come up over Passamaquoddy Bay, even if it means doubling the speed limit the whole way.
    “I’ve never seen a cop out here,” he says.
    Gabe’s car isn’t fancy, just a secondhand sedan with a bench seat and electric windows. The baby-blue hood doesn’t match the rest of the body, which is chocolate brown.
    Gabe