House is warm. Makes me dizzy. Have to sit down before I fall down. Dagda’s bollocks! Weak excuse for a man! On the bench now, everything swirling around. Ripple lays her head on my knee, looks up at me like she knows how I feel. ‘It’s all right, girl,’ I tell her. ‘She’ll be home soon.’

I sit there a while. See things in the flames that I don’t want to see. Glad the dog’s with me. She’s dried off now, hair all silky under my fingers. I think of Blackthorn when she was turned into a monster, skin scaly, mouth crammed with teeth, trying to talk to me and only groans coming out. How I held her in my arms and cried over her. Promised I’d stay by her if it took two hundred years. They talk about folk having their hearts broken. When she came back to herself I felt my heart mend, all the pieces coming together again. Stronger because it was broken before. Odd, that.

After a bit I get up, take off my wet things and hang them up out the back, put on dry ones. Set the kettle on the fire for a brew. Find some bits and pieces and make a supper of sorts, halfway between a gruel and a soup. It’ll be hot, at least. Get out a flask of mead, some cups. Feed Ripple. House is as cosy as I can make it. I’m tired enough to fall asleep right now. One more thing to do. If it’s foolish, so be it. Feels like it might help bring her home.

I get out the wax tablet again. Read it aloud: ‘What bird are you? I am a crow.’ Know already what I want to write, and it’s not what Blackthorn would have asked for: What bird are you? I am an owl, and so on. It’s something a lot harder. For me, anyway. So I write, or do my best to write:

Who is this woman?

Her hair is red as flame

Her eyes are wise as an owl’s

Her hands are strong as a warrior’s

They are gentle as a mother’s

All fight on the outside

All goodness within

She walks her own path

Her name is Blackthorn.