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somewhere back of my eyes, and I sit down again. The world feels like it’s spinning, but I think that’s just my head.
    I hear Wake say “Well done,” quiet with satisfaction.
    The next thing I notice is a clank sound, as Steam sets down a couple of buckets and the yoke-chains rattle off the lids.
    Steam doesn’t lookthe least bit put out at having carried two twenty-litre buckets up the hill, yoke or no yoke.
    Full ones, one of them is stacked ten-litre cans, one water and one…I don’t know what it is. It tastes of citrus and happiness, in a terrible clear way, the way you probably feel if your enemies are dragged before you in chains. Dove makes some implausible faces drinking it. So does Kynefrid.
    The otherbucket is food.
    It’s mostly potato salad, along with some mutton sausage and a couple apples each. I keep having to make a conscious effort to chew.
    Right around when I start the second apple, I realize there’s sounds that weren’t there before. It’s quiet, you have to stop and listen.
    Dove stops dead, stops chewing, when I go still and listening.
    Zora leans over and taps Chloris. Chloris producesan affronted look back, but they both go quiet. Wake is nearly always quiet. Certainly doesn’t look worried. Kynefrid is lying down flat, no snoring, but I doubt Kynefrid’s awake.
    Steam gets up and takes two steps towards the trees. Steam’s been an amiable sort, smiles a lot, if not as utterly cheerful as Wake. This looks different, it feels like cold glass.
    I’m not supposed to get the feel ofcold glass through my eyes.
    The sound comes again, faint and high. Three clear notes and a trill.
    “Bird?” says Steam.
    “Bird,” Wake says.
    Dove starts chewing again. Zora’s looking intent, back and forth, Chloris is looking at Steam and looking worried.
    Steam, it’s not like straightening up, but it’s something. No cold glass, no unnatural smoothness of motion. Steam shrugs with one shoulder.
    “Shiftingthe past around like that brings live things through.” Steam sort of waves at the forest. “Some ways, that’s always been there now. Other ways, it just happened. It’s too big to be sure there’s nothing hungry in there. So we’re cautious.”
    Chloris nods, slowly.
    “You deal with hungry things?”
    Steam smiles, gently. “Big ones.”
    “We have to deal with the small ones?” Chloris doesn’t sound like theprospect appeals. I certainly don’t want to, though I would be pleased to get a better look at the bird. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that song before.
    Steam’s head shakes, stops, so chin pointing will work. “Wake does.
    “Whatever that other history uses for sheep could have sneezed a disease all over this meadow, and we’re all dead without knowing it, from sitting in it to eat lunch.” Steamdoesn’t sound like someone who particularly cares, one way or another.
    Wake’s eyes narrow. “Not the most likely outcome, even without the warding. With the warding, I should describe it as surpassingly unlikely.”
    Steam nods.
    “So that’s why no one uses it for farms.” Zora, sounding subdued.
    “One of the reasons, yes,” Wake says. “One of the others is that sometimes there are big things in there.Crunchers may well have come into our present world by that means.”
    “Is the ward active?” Dove sounds like someone asking a technical question, maybe not their skill but something they’ve done. My brain doesn’t want to work, it’s making ‘digesting, go away’ noises at me, but I figure I should know, too, and try to pay attention.
    Wake nods. “Any disease-causing organism able to significantly infectthe inhabitants of the Commonweal, their commensals or cattle, will be dead in a few hours. Similarly anything able to produce widespread ecological change in the wild portions of the Creeks, even the tiny wild places under the hedges. Certainly before it is time to leave for dinner.”
    I’m pretty sure I’m staring at Wake, too. Everybody else