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the angels’ visit, and I supposed it would continue to be a topic among the younger girls for the rest of the year. On the part of the older women, sentiment was almost evenly divided between shock and envy, though I had the sense that even some of those who professed shock secretly experienced a little envy. To have snared the attention of an angel so completely that he could not bear to leave you behind! To have been claimed by an angel in such a public fashion! Surely Saul was infatuated with our Neri. Surely he would shower her with all sorts of gifts and lavish upon her an intense and poetic affection.
    It was impossible to live in our society and not be aware of the fact that angels were notoriously inconstant lovers, and no one, not even Neri’s mother, voiced the hope that Saul had found a soul mate whom he would cherish for the rest of his life. But surely he would treat her well, for a time at least, and she would live in idle luxury among the angels at Windy Point. Perhaps she would have the supreme felicity of bearing an angel child, an event so rare and so longed for that to accomplish it would elevate Neri’s status forever.
    I said nothing during all these discussions. But I knew that Saul did not love Neri, that he would not treat her well, and that if she managed to get pregnant, she was far more likely to die in childbirth than to bear a living angel infant.
    I thought it probable that none of us would ever see Neri again, and if we did, we would hardly recognize her because she would be so changed. Beaten down and used up and nervous and hopeless and disappointed and ashamed.
    That was how most angel-seekers ended up, and those who spent any time in Windy Point were the most broken-down and wrung out of all.
    I was glad when the common conversation in the kitchen began to turn toward the festival in Laban, which was now only a week away. Hope Danfrees and her family were not the only neighbors who were planning to attend. It turned out that Thaddeus’s whole family would be going, and he had made it known that any of the farmhands were welcome to take a short holiday as long as enough people were left behind to care for the crops. Maybe a dozen of the laborers and kitchen staff had decided to undertake the half-day trek to Laban, and now there was a great deal of jockeying for a place in one of the carts and wagons that would be pressed into service. David had already secured Sheba’s promise to ride with him. He was one of the few young men I trusted, and so I would not insist on sitting in the wagon with them for that whole long ride, but would accompany Hope as I had originally planned. That would leave room for Ruth and Hara—and perhaps a couple of their young men—to join David and Sheba. All in all, it was shaping up to be a most agreeable outing. Even I was looking forward to it.
    “Do you suppose there will be dancing at the festival?” Hara asked one afternoon as nine of us worked in the kitchen on baking day. Someone had asked this question every day for the past five.
    “ Surely there will be dancing,” a girl named Adriel replied, as someone had replied every day. “There’s that big central square in Laban. Surely they’ll turn it into a dance floor.”
    “I’m going to buy red ribbon,” Sheba said. “Narrow ribbon and wide ribbon and ruched ribbon. And I’m going to make a white dress and cover it with red bows.”
    “I’m going to find a bakery,” Lazarene said. “I want one of those sweet cakes with the creamy filling.”
    “I want to buy a necklace,” someone else said.
    “I’m going to get scented cream. Look at my skin—you’d think I was harvesting crops with my bare hands.”
    “Do you suppose Jansai merchants will be in Laban?”
    “Do you suppose there will be Edori traders?”
    “Do you think any angels will come?”
    I looked up at that last question, not sure if Ruth or Adriel had been the one to ask. Laban was not all that far from Windy Point. I