Runolf sniffed and I saw the object of his gaze. A tiny cairn of standing rocks nestled in the grass near the stream. Just like the bridge, the pile of rocks was incongruous and unsettling, a stark reminder of the life of those who had inhabited this place.

With a grunt, Runolf pushed himself to his feet.

“Children leave butter for the elves here,” he said, his tone desolate.

“Children?” I said.

Runolf turned to look at me. He blinked, as if he was only then aware of my presence. He took in the others who had followed him, and sighed.

“It has always been thus,” he said. “I used to come here with Skorri and our sisters.” He shook his head at the memory. “We’d leave gifts for the elves. To bring good fortune to the farm. To make sure enough lambs would survive the spring. That a sickly cow’s milk would not sour. Once,” he said, smiling unexpectedly at some distant recollection, “I left an amber necklace here and asked that my favourite horse, a white mare, would survive bearing her foal. Something was wrong and she had lain down. It looked like she would succumb. When my mother found out what I had done, she was furious. I got such a beating, and she sent me all the way up here in the dark for the necklace.”

He snorted and looked about him at the towering oak and beech trees, perhaps remembering how the buildings had been back then when he was a boy. Until then, I had not realised that this steading was where he had grown up; his family’s land. I tried to imagine what it would feel like for me to return home to Ubbanford, only to find nobody living there, and all the buildings consumed by fire. Again, I wanted to reach out to Runolf, but I fought the urge. He would not welcome it, and I could not bear the thought that he might push me away.

“I was terrified,” he said, looking down at the cairn. “By the light of the moon, every tree looked like a creature of the forest, a tröll, or worse.” He shivered at the ghost of his childhood fear. “The branches whispered and owls called in the darkness. When I could not find the necklace where I had left it, I didn’t know what to do. In the end, I returned to the hall empty handed and got another beating. My father knew I was frightened of the dark and did not believe I had come up here, so he dragged me here again, but this time he carried a torch. I was still scared, but with the light, and my father beside me, the night seemed smaller somehow.”

“Did you find the necklace?” I asked.