‘Oh yes. It’s lovely on a hot day. But I know you don’t like the water.’

He turned to me and smiled, too much. Spreading. My own face did the same, I didn’t know why. I felt the warmth of him next to me, breathed in his scent of hay and horses.

‘Oh,’ he said, a note of surprise in his tone that didn’t convince. ‘I have something for you.’ He held out the comb, a thing of beauty such as I’d hardly seen, and certainly never owned. ‘It was my mother’s. I thought – for your sister. To help with the, er—’

He had waved his hand over his head to indicate Annie’s lops.

I studied his gift, running my fingers over the curved edges, the points of the teeth. When I looked up he was walking away, already disappearing into the cluster of trees.

Holding the comb now, that day feels so far away. Part of another life, that happened to another lass. I hold it in both hands, press it to me, just once. Place it on the table. Sigh, pour milk into a cup and lift it to Mam’s lips. She does not look at me.

At first I think dawn is peeking through the gaps in wall and roof. The light is not constant, nor gradually growing stronger as it should, but laps against the house.

Something has come, and I don’t know what. I stand in front of the door, watching the brightness slip and pulse through the spaces between planks of wood.

There’s a cough outside.

Before I can waver, I yank the door open. No man will hold me imprisoned by terror in my home.

Were it not a threat, the sight would be beautiful.

A splash of yellow lights in the night, in a half-circle around the front of the house, seeming to float, though I know they’re held by unseen hands. A few steps away, for those carrying them are too feared to come within a curse’s reach of us. There are so many. Every person in the village must be here. I wonder which light is held by Daniel.

I stand in the doorway while Annie sleeps, while Mam whispers and weeps, watching the fearful, flickering beauty in the darkness.

The Stars Above

It was a mistake to come to the river. Like pressing a finger into an open wound.

He touched the places they had been. Here, they had searched for wood, here lit the fire. Lain together for the first time. There, they had swum. Here, he had given her the ring. He longed for all that he had believed to be truth, fumed at his own frailty in falling prey to her. Took the stone she had given him from his pocket, thought perhaps to hang it on the tree and see if she might come.

This was his farewell. He would not return.