‘Why dust have to go?’ Annie asks, sitting at the table and swinging her legs as she chews on dandelion leaves. She is just returned from exploring the ruins, her knees and hands smeared with mud. ‘There’s babby foxes in the woods and they’re all starting to crawl and jump around now and I want to show you. And I found another piece for us to play with.’

She places a small wooden thing on the table, shaped like an acorn, flat at the top and coming to a rounded point at the bottom. It is speckled with dirt and mould, and I can see it crumbles at the edges. Annie looks at Mam expectantly.

‘Show her tomorrow,’ Mam says. ‘Take John. He’ll play with you and visit babby foxes.’

Still rolled in his blanket, John sits up, with his hair askew and expression indignant.

‘Unless you’ve plans to join us and ask for labour?’ Mam asks.

He grunts and lies back down.

‘But what is it, Mammy?’ Annie asks. ‘My piece?’

I can’t take my eyes from it. Useless now, softened with age and decay, but I can imagine the little hands setting it to spin on the ground, small voices ringing with laughter.

Mam glances at the treasure. ‘It’s a top. For childer, they would’ve spun it.’

Annie’s mouth pops open as she stares and twists, but it falls over immediately.

‘Put it with the others,’ I say, only so I may stop thinking of the little hands mouldering under the soil, of the voices now silenced.

She slides from the stool and places it carefully with her collection, jumping on John on the way back. He groans and complains, but I know he’ll not resist her for long.

‘Oh come, John, come and see,’ Annie says. ‘I’ll show you where the foxes hide, but you must be silent else you’ll scare the mammy.’

‘Leave me be, Squirrel,’ he says, burrowing under the blanket. I know he’ll be up and off to the woods with her as we step through the door. His affection for Annie runs as fierce and protective as mine, though he feigns disinterest in front of me and Mam, should we think him weak and incapable as our protector. I do, but it’s his softness, his inability to resist anything Annie asks of him, that thaws my feelings towards him.

Mam turns from the path that leads down to the green and cottages at the shore, heading left towards the Taylors’ farm. She nods to a girl who waves.

‘Sweet lass, that Phyllis,’ she says.

I stop. ‘You said the village.’

‘Farm is part of the village. Step on, lass.’

I grip the bowl of salve, remembering the lad as he coaxed the mare, the gentleness of his voice, sunlight catching his eyes. How fear froze him when he realised who I was. ‘Who is the salve for?’