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being alone. Sometimes.
    “You flirt with danger too
much, Ruby,” Cath insisted.
    I’d meant to ask Maisie
about the strange conversation she’d had with Sarah, but I’d forgotten in my
need to get a glimpse of my ghosts. I yearned for that more than I feared the
stranger. I’d never seen the two girls in the daytime, but I also needed to
find the clearing from my dream, and I had little hope of that in the
pitch-black night.
    I kept walking until the
edge of the forest was out of sight. There, with none of the outside world
peeking through the tree trunks, nothing but dappled light fell onto the forest
floor. In the otherworldly peace, hummingbirds appeared in the soft, magical
light like tiny, iridescent fairies.
    “What do you want to do in
here, anyway?” Cath whined, staying carefully behind a nearby tree, too
terrified to go any farther into the forest. Her white-blond hair fell limply
to her shoulders like a protective curtain, and I briefly considered walking on
until I couldn’t see – or hear – her anymore. But that wasn’t very
polite. And being polite was something Sarah always insisted on.
    “I just want to wander,
Cath.” And look for the clearing. For my
mother . If I could just know something – anything – about who I
really was …
    “You’re a loon, Ruby Beg.”
    Didn’t I know it. I had
reminder enough that I wasn’t like the other girls without Cath babbling on
about it. The memory of my failed first kiss warmed my cheeks.
    “I’m leaving,” she announced.
“A girl has better things to do than traipse around the forest. Like work. And
flirting.”
    I rolled my eyes. “Your
priorities are laughable.”
    “ Mine ?” she demanded. “It’s you that’s laughable! What are you doing
with your life? Sitting in the forest as every other girl in town snaps up each
eligible man?”
    “That’s really what keeps
you up at night?” I turned to my comrade, several yards away, just as an
unfamiliar hummingbird came to a sleepy rest on my shoulder.
    Her face seemed to fall,
defeated. “We’re not five anymore, Ruby. There are more of us than there are
men.” She wasn’t lecturing me anymore – she sounded despondent. “I’m
plain and I like my peace and quiet. What would a man want with me? I’m liable
to be the last one standing, and then what? I’m not made for traveling. I can’t
go off and find me a husband. But I shan’t end like Maisie, either.”
    The little bird on my
shoulder tipped over, righting itself just in time to avoid falling to the
ground, and I took him into my palm for safekeeping. His tiny eyes blinked
once, then twice before falling closed again.
    “I wouldn’t mind so much to
end up like Maisie,” I said softly.
    A disbelieving breath
escaped Cath’s mouth. “Oh, wouldn’t you? I’ve seen the way you look at Wyn.”
    My cheeks flushed
indignantly. “Do you think of anything but marriage?” I bellowed. “What if I
want more than marriage and a house in Killybeg?”
    She looked genuinely
confused. “What else is there?”
    My mouth hung open,
searching for the words.
    I don’t know , I realized with a shock. And there it was, the root of my
hesitation, laying out before me in crystal clear vision now. What if the rest of the world is awful? What if Wyn and I got lost – or died? What if Wyn died on The Great and
Mighty Voyage and I was left alone?
    “I don’t know what else
there is, Cath,” I said softly. My thumb brushed against the sleepy
hummingbird’s neck, desperate for a comforting, familiar feeling.
    “Well, I know what there is,”
she said sternly. “And it doesn’t include a whole lot of options. I’ll find a
husband if it’s the last thing I do!”
    “Eh! Stop the woman talk!”
    I twisted around to find
Pat Manor walking toward us from the depths of the Haunted Wood. He grasped a
huge walking stick as gnarled as his hands, and wielded it in front of him as
if to ward off the evil talk of women.
    “Stop the girly