Tears brimmed from Cara’s eyes. There was nothing to say. Maybe her heart would break right here and now, split apart in her chest so she fell down dead. That might be a good thing, a merciful thing.

‘My dear child, what is wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ she whispered. ‘Please tell me the rest.’

But Master Oisin got up to make the brew, and would not go on with the tale until she had drunk some of it. He gave her a cloth to wipe away the tears. It would have been easier to stop crying if he had not been so kind.

‘I’m all right now,’ she said, though surely she’d never be all right, not after this. ‘Please go on.’

‘If you’re sure, my dear.’

‘I’m sure.’

‘The monster made her way to the man’s house, ponderous out of the water, leaving a trail of slime across the fields and scaring the cattle. She howled outside his door. She screamed outside his window. But he would not give back her child. Not unless she built for him a heartwood house like the one in the song. Stone on stone on stone. Nine couples. Every timber in the wood. A house that would shower him and his with blessings. When it was done, he told the creature, when it was perfect in every detail, he would return her baby.’

‘Cruel,’ Cara whispered, trying to picture the creature that lived under the bridge, and finding she could only think of Bardán, the wild man, the monster to her father’s rich man. ‘Cruel and selfish.’

‘And, as it turned out, misguided,’ said Master Oisin. The firelight flickered over his calm features, his silver-grey hair, his hands curved around the earthenware cup. ‘The creature built him the house. Cut the timber herself, with her teeth. Laid the stone. Hammered in the uprights. Heaved up the roof beams; she was strong. All the time weeping for her child, who would be frightened and lonely in a house of strangers, with no river to swim in and no mother to sing to him. Would they remember to keep his skin damp so he did not come out in blisters? Would they tickle his belly and make him laugh in delight? Would they be kind to him? She built and built, and the heartwood house grew and grew. Folk from all around came to stare at her as she worked. But they kept a safe distance away. Those teeth were formidable. They did not know that she used them mostly to pull up grass and chew it fine, so her little one could eat it without choking. What were they feeding him? The man did not listen when she tried to ask him. He was deaf to all but what he chose to hear.