When February came round, there was much to do. At the end of the month Da and the boys would be away to Lewis, the season beginning again. There was mending and knitting to be done, and lines and nets to be repaired for the Lily Maud. Ma’s rounds, too—no longer Ma’s—with our smokies. I would not let Kitta take the creel; she was tired and hunched and not strong enough. She didn’t even argue.

I walked to the churchyard, to the stone engraved Belle Neish Duthie. There was nothing in me that believed this mound of earth was my ma, but I needed to talk to someone.

What do I do? I whispered, laying a handful of red clover at the foot of the stone. She is slippin’ away from us, Ma.

But my mother’s strength, the silent grace I’d taken for granted and did not ever think to need, was lost to me now. I listened for her voice. Nothing.

Unty Jinna was the only other person. I waited until Liza left with a basket of washing. My father’s sister was pressing fine linen sheets with a hot iron and water, scenting them with dried rosemary. I gathered up some pillow cloths and folded them for her.

Is nothin’ ye can do for Kitta now, she told me, frowning. I done all I could afore your ma passed. But some things will be, no mind to wishing them otherwise.

She looked at my blank face. Lifted a brow.

Ah.

I waited.

Steam hissed, rising from the sheets, and Unty Jinna breathed it in. The smell was sharp and sweet, both.

She will have to tell ye herself, Fish Meggie. She is the one to.

But Kitta would tell me nothing, no mind however many times I asked, and once again I reeled from the blow.

When I mentioned fetching the doctor, she gave me one of Ma’s Looks.

~

I remember the sky that day, an early March sky. Dirty white, bruised with the grey of a storm heading in from the north-east. All through the morning, tramping across country, I watched shapes form in the clouds. A woman’s face. A solan goose, the curve of its neck, its angel wings. The moon before dark has yet fallen. And then it was just the storm, a violence of wind and stones, almost too thick to see the way ahead. I stumbled with the creel laden with eggs and butter, sacks of neeps, and there was nowhere to shelter from the sting of hail on my face. Five minutes and I was drenched through every layer of wool, mud splashed to my knees.

By the time I reached Tiller Street, the hail had stopped but not the wind. I pushed the door shut behind me, and a roar of air shuddered through the chimney. Soot rained down on the grate.

The empty grate.

Four o’clock and no fire.