She lay back against the roof and looked up at the clouds. Cwen; Sebastian. Sebastian; Cwen. She shut her eyes, and felt herself being lifted up on her thoughts, away from the wrangling of her uncles, as she swooped with feathered arms right up over the islands, gliding on the warm air currents. She could see Cwen’s chambered cairn; the stone door had been propped open. Sunlight was flooding into that cold stone space. She swooped down into the chamber. On the back wall, in the darkest spot, where the sunlight hit, were the ancient carvings.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she opened her eyes again. She was lying in Tara’s lap. Stella and Tara were staring down at her.

‘You were singing,’ Tara said.

Zoe closed her eyes again. She felt the shudder of the cairn’s coldness, as her fingers traced the V-symbol.

‘Cwen was telling me to go there.’

The fifteenth year. Cwen’s doing.

They are coming over together, just the two of them. The woman, whose muscles are not as strong as they once were, is easily tired, and this time it is the girl who is rowing. How long has it been? she asks her grandmother, and the old woman looks worried. Too long, a year? Nine months?

Six, seven months, the girl says, we came at spring equinox, remember?

Why didn’t you want the others to come? the old woman asks, and the girl shakes her head. Just you and me this time.

It has worked too well. Cwen stretches a little, feels them becoming each other, feels her becoming them. Who is who? Whose eye is this, whose hand, whose brain, whose voice? Between the three of them, things are blurring.

When they get to her island, they sit idly on the beach for a while, chatting. Cwen doesn’t bother listening. It is love talk, mindless and relaxing. But after a while, the girl says something; and abruptly, the laughter stops. Her grandmother looks angry. She picks up sand in her hands, lets it fall through her fingers, gesticulates across the water to the great dark mass of the hill, and again, behind them, to Cwen’s island. The girl nods. The woman hugs the girl to her. Cwen sees the woman’s tears fall.

Eventually, they get to their feet; but slowly, as if they are weighed down by something. They walk up, hand in hand, to Cwen’s spring. The woman is still upset by whatever the girl has told her. But they drink Cwen’s waters from their metal cup, and smile at each other. We put that cup there, the girl says. Remember?

In the afternoon, they walk all over the headland, collecting ochre.

Cwen watches them as they gather the practical magic in baskets. Moved by their efforts, she leans over and kisses them both, wishing them courage. Only the girl feels her kiss.