This chapter arrives Friday. Until then, a taste of what is coming:

In the aftermath, the village learns the slower art of minding its own business, and Wrenna chooses her shape of freedom: no cage of marriage, no apology tour, no exile — a life lived between village and wood, with a door she bars or unbars as she pleases.

The final love scene is the fullest in the book — unhurried, explicit, laughing and tender — and in the last paragraph Wrenna hangs the red ribbon on the door latch where the whole Blackpine can see it. From the trees, a familiar voice answers the choice she has already made: 'There she is.'