Free The Safe-Keeper's Secret by Sharon Shinn Page B

the year, though it took place on the coldest, darkest day, and Fiona and her mother had been baking for days in preparation.
    There were pies made from dried summer apples, and sweet hard cookies. There were three kinds of bread and two varieties of cake. They had made blackberry tarts and blueberry tarts, and Fiona had suggested they make kirrenberry tarts as well.
    â€œUgh. No. They have a very bitter taste,” her mother had said.
    â€œI thought we could give one to Thomas. And maybe it would turn him silent for a day,” Fiona said.
    Damiana choked and started laughing. “Make him some kirrenberry tea and see if he drinks it,” she said through her laughter. “It would have the same effect.”
    But of course Fiona didn’t.
    Everyone arrived at once, Angeline and Thomas from the west, Isadora from the east, and they all hurried into the house to get warm. Everyone was loaded down with bundles—clothes for a few days’ stay, of course, as well as the traditional gifts of the holiday—and all the travelers carried inside with them the sweet, clean scent of winter.
    â€œMy, I don’t remember a winter so cold in at least ten years,” Isadora exclaimed. “Poor Helwick, he’d loaded up his wagon with hot bricks for my feet, and he kept asking me if I was warm enough, but of course I wasn’t. I finally snapped at him, ‘Well, it would be a dream come true if the whole cart caught fire right now and I could get warm all over.’ So the whole rest of the trip he kept looking around, afraid everything in the wagon was going to go up in flames.”
    â€œIt wouldn’t be so bad if it would snow,” said Angeline.
    â€œIt would be worse!” Thomas replied. “Then it would be cold
and
wet, and your trip back to Lowford would be even slower than your trip here.”
    â€œBut at least it would be pretty,” Damiana said.
    â€œTill the horses churned it up and your kids mucked it up and it melted and froze a few more times—”
    â€œ
He’s
in a fine mood,” Damiana observed to her sister. “Was he like this the whole way from Lowford?”
    Angeline grinned. “He doesn’t like the cold.”
    â€œWell, it’s warm inside,” Damiana said. “Everybody get your things settled in. Fiona and I will put dinner on the table.”
    Since the six of them had celebrated Wintermoon together for as long as Fiona could remember, everyone knew exactly where their bundles belonged. Reed had already been moved to Fiona’s room, to sleep on a mat on the floor; Angeline would sleep in his bed. Isadora, who claimed she could not climb stairs of any kind, would sleep on the sofa in the main room. Thomas would stow his gear in Damiana’s own room, as he always did. The house would be full, but merry.
    After the meal, which was delicious, they gathered in the main room to begin decorating the house. Fiona and Reed had spent the last two days roaming the woods to find the proper boughs—oak for strength, birch for beauty, cedar for serenity, evergreen for steadfastness, rowan for faith—and they had brought them all back to make a huge pile in the middle of the main room. They would weave all the branches together—the thin, bare limbs of the wood twined with the supple bright strands of evergreen—to make ropes to wind over every surface or dangle above every doorway. They would save the best branches, of course, for the big wreath that would hang over the fireplace until Wintermoon night.
    The women had hoarded ribbons and scraps from sewing projects all year, and these were used to bind the branches and add their own magic and memories. “Lace from a young girl’s wedding gown—that’s for hope,” Angeline said, dropping her contribution into the pile.
    â€œRed ribbon from Fiona’s winter dress—that’s for merriment,” said Damiana.
    â€œGold thread for