When he returned to the house hours later, the sun was just sinking towards the horizon and the man was gone. This wasn’t especially unusual. The man had a car and sometimes he would be gone for hours, returning in time for dinner, or bringing back bags of groceries. Michael did not pay much attention – it didn’t seem important. He slunk back up to his bedroom, where he moved restlessly for an hour or so, unable to concentrate. He looked down at the thick black dirt under his fingernails and thought about how each chick’s heart had stopped. Eventually.

When he heard the man come back into the house, he did not stir from his place on the bed until a sharp bark summoned him downstairs. There, the man looked him over, seeming to take in the mud soaked into his trousers and the dirt ground into his palms. He smiled, his fake eye flashing with the orange light of sunset.

‘I’ve something else for you.’

There was a sack on the dining-room table – a rough hessian thing that had been printed with the single word: DARTS. It was moving slightly. Without needing to be told, Michael went to the sack and opened it, revealing four tiny kittens, all still with their eyes shut, and all a piebald mixture of black and white. He reached in and picked one up, feeling the hectic warmth of its body against his skin. So alive, and so powerless.

‘Michael, lad, have you ever heard of the barghest?’

He curled the kitten against his chest.

‘The what?’

‘It’s a great demon dog, a wolf really, that haunts lonely roads and stiles. An old legend of the north.’

‘Like … a fairy story?’

The man smiled, exposing his long, yellow teeth.

‘Not really, lad. The barghest is an omen, but it’s also thought of as a spirit of the land, a symbol of death and rebirth. Where it walks, it makes no sound and leaves no mark, but if it bites you, the wound will never heal.’

‘All right,’ said Michael, uncertain what he was supposed to say.

‘The wolf has an important role, lad. You know that? He gives life to the land, because the land is always hungry.’ The man went to the sack, where the other kittens were clinging together, mewling at each other. He covered them over with a piece of hessian. ‘There are people who don’t recognize the power of that. Your dear old mother, for one. Women, lad. They have a different role to play.’

Michael winced.

‘But you already solved that problem, didn’t you?’ He turned to the boy, and his face changed again; an onlooker would have taken him for a kindly uncle, pleased to be treating his nephew. ‘The kittens are yours to play with.’

Michael nodded.

15