Some years don't ask for a single dramatic thing. They ask for everything, a little at a time. This is Mara's fourth year as keeper of Willowfen's bend. She tends the river through four rites and four seasons. She fights a rumour that nearly unravels the trust she's built. She stands at Ashenmere in summer heat and refuses, again, what the pool keeps offering. She watches Elin grow into someone the river already listens to. And she begins, slowly, to understand that letting people do the work they're ready for is its own kind of keeping. There is also a goat. The goat is not metaphorical. A story about the year that teaches you what permanence actually feels like, not the dramatic kind, but the kind built from bread, and arguments, and staying.