Grim told him once that when you felt sad or angry or hopeless, a story could help. A story could lead you into a different world for a while. It might be a world where a foolish youngest son could turn into a brave and clever hero, or a beaten woman could end up as a wise leader of folk. And when the story was ended and that world was gone, you still had the idea of it inside you. Like a flame that didn’t go out even when the bad things rattled and swirled and screamed, and worse, oh, much worse, when they whispered and goaded and tormented.

He could tell a tale now. That’s what Grim would say he should do. He tries to imagine Grim here in the hut, sitting by him, solid and strong. Grim’s not a handsome man. But he has truth and kindness in his gaze, and a steady pair of hands. He’s told Grim his father’s story, the part he knows, the part he remembers. It’s a tale as strange as anything you could make up. But true; sad and true. After his father and mother came out of that place, the Otherworld he supposes it was, they were happy after their fashion. His father had a deft touch with wood, so precise and clever that folk called it uncanny. But they paid for his work all the same, and there was always food on the table. They did not live in the settlement of Longwater, but in the forest above it, on the western side of Wolf Glen. Bardán’s father built the cottage. Snug and warm it was, not like this wretched place. Bardán’s mother made it cosy, the walls hung with her embroideries of strange and wondrous things: ships sailing to far islands surrounded by long-toothed sea creatures; a man with wings, flying over a great settlement of flat-roofed houses, and tiny folk in red gazing up and waving. And birds, always birds. She dyed the wool herself, finding the materials in the forest, making colours there were no names for; rich, remarkable hues. Bardán had loved those pictures. What had happened to them? Where had they gone?