After I’d finished eating went into the parlour to look at the rose again: It was still there—I hadn’t dreamed that, at least. The golden petal lay on the mantelpiece where Ger had set it the night before; it teetered gently on its curved base when I looked closely at it, but that must have been a draft in the room. The rose had opened no wider; it was as though it had been frozen at the moment of its most perfect beauty. Looking at it—its perfume filled the whole room—I found it easy to believe that this rose would never fade and die. I went out the front door and shut it softly behind me, feeling that I had just emerged from a magician’s cave. Ger had a skittery colt to shoe that day, and I had promised to help him; so I kept watch through the stable window, as I groomed the horses, for the arrival of the colt with its owner. I worked hastily, since I had two horses to finish in the time I usually spent on one; but something about the horse Father had ridden gave me pause.
