The woman is familiar. She has come over before: at the spring equinox, for example, when the fish are on the move, and there are squalls in the heavens. Sometimes, around the autumn quarter-year, she might spend a day reverently picking Cwen’s apples, or her ear mushrooms, or sheep-girl’s supper. Even shaman’s dream. The woman has come over often, with friends. But never before with the child.

The woman shows the little girl everything. They begin with the mound itself. She pushes open the stone door, and crawls in first, in case the child is scared. The child is scared, and has to be coaxed inside. But they spend a long time in there, singing and chanting. When they emerge into the sunlight again, they look dazed, as if they might actually have heard the histories. Cwen can believe it. They walk down the long eastern beach, and the woman shows the little girl where the cowrie shells are to be found. They find three of Cwen’s cowries, and a Druid stone with a hole clean through the middle, and a piece of dried bladderwrack with the holdfast still attached. Then, from the beach, they walk up towards the spring. At last, Cwen thinks, they are coming for my water. They approach quietly, whispering to each other. Cwen is pleased by that. She watches. She waits. She has been waiting for so long now. She holds her breath, not wanting to do anything to disturb them. She shushes the waves, shushes the currents of Wind that swirl above them. Patiently, she waits, hoping. For the purpose of drinking they have brought a metal cup. I would have liked a metal cup back then, Cwen hears herself thinking; and maybe they can hear her thoughts, maybe she is inside their heads already: for they tie some string around the cup’s handle, and tie the string to a rock. Then they drink. They do not strip, nor step into the stone-lined tank and bathe, as women once used to. But they have taken Cwen’s waters, and that makes them hers.

Then an amazing thing happens.

When Cwen blows on her, the child opens her eyes. Brown eyes, with light glinting in them like fish in a rock pool. They look straight into each other. Cwen will never forget it. Everybody else so far has remained impervious. One small child. It is a beginning.

It is right, Cwen tells the birds above her, and the mackerel that swoop past in their seriously single-minded silver groups. It is right, she tells the mushrooms growing out of the burrows of the puffins. It is right, she tells the cowries themselves, and the Druid stone that the waves have pummelled into meaning. It is right, she tells the flock of black sheep, so loudly that they look up in surprise. It is right, she tells anything that will listen.