This time she was laughing at herself. She’d missed that feeling so much.

Climbing off the wall, she started to dance. Turning circles, stamping, throwing up her new ring finger, she danced across the turning circle, back beneath the cedar tree, and across to Lester’s cottage garden to let out Laurence the fox.

*

The Turners were all looking in the same direction for once. Social Norm’s oxygen mask was steamed up excitedly, Janine’s talons held her iPhone aloft, live-streaming on Facebook.

Carly just watched, open-mouthed.

Luca’s fingertips were almost too fast to see, perfectly pitched, stampeding, each bow stroke cutting into Carly’s heart because talent always hurt when it belonged to somebody modest. First the ‘Swallowtail Gig’ for Social Norm. Quicker and quicker, notes soaring as cleanly as curlew cries.

Even Ash, freshly arrived with his rowdy lad army, stopped to listen on his way to the cider bar. ‘Better than the usual bollocks. Who is it?’

‘The new guy from the yard, the Horsemaker.’

At this, he looked less impressed, turning to mutter something with Flynn, both men clearing throats with laughter before swaggering off.

Carly ignored them, bewitched as Luca launched straight into another Irish gig, Turner feet stamping around her, all the family whooping. Grandpa Norm was wiping a tear. To this cliquey, tight-knit tribe, fellow nomad Luca was one of them. To Carly, he was from another world, his pure focus something she’d never seen before. She knew he’d had a few drinks, that there was tension between him and Pax, that he’d not wanted to perform at all. Yet he was lost in his music. She envied him that release, the self-control to use his gifts sparingly. She must learn everything he could teach her. Maybe, with his help, she could even heal Ash who rejoined her now, hard-muscled arm swinging around her like a fairground safety bar, proprietorial kiss on her head. Carly sensed the hum that ran through him like high-voltage power lines these days, a silent signal that she was in for a bumpy ride if he drank too much. He was spoiling for a fight. Carly didn’t want the bout with Jed to go ahead, but she sensed his need to discharge the pent-up energy. The safety catch was off, the hours of punching leather bags and crunching bench presses awaiting pay-off. If a fly dared land on him tonight, he’d right-hook it into space.

‘So he’s your new boss?’

‘I’m covering his days off mostly,’ she said, shrugging, deliberately indifferent, turning to watch a small group of revellers jigging around nearby, Bridge among them.

Catching her looking, Bridge gave a double thumbs up, adding a high kick and a pelvic thrust for effect.

Ash was still fixed on Luca. ‘He should be a professional.’

‘He is,’ Carly said. ‘A horse professional.’

Ash’s expression darkened yet more.

Jig over, applause loud, Luca tried to take a polite bow and leave, but they bayed for more, shouting and whistling, bribing him with drink and refusing to let him hand the violin back. Smiling, his next piece was all too familiar. Carly recognised it from the first three notes, burning into her soul. As a ripple of ‘What is it? I know this!’ spread through the crowd, she sensed it was for her; she’d told him it was a leitmotif, and Luca played it so passionately that they all stopped to listen, some clapping along, others dancing, lit by bonfire flames and strings of fairy lights.