More people are joining the circle, rolling what are left of the hay bales over as an outer row and sitting atop them. Joints are passed around small groups. Their corner of the field is becoming crowded. Mel sees a huge dragonfly above their heads, with pleasure at first, then as it flits back and forth across the circle and she realizes it’s lost, rising panic. It will die here, she thinks. Like a trapped bird battering itself out in a room. Her heart beats fast and high.

She takes a breath involuntarily and the smoke from the campfire hits the back of her throat and her eyes fill.

Pete is talking to the red-headed girl. Chris takes Mel’s wrist, circling it with a thumb and finger. She closes her eyes. When she opens them again the dragonfly is gone.

Next to Mel and Chris, Rainbow picks up her jumper, turns it inside out and puts it back on again. ‘Dusk coming,’ she says to them with a nod. ‘Don’t want to forget.’

More bales and logs are brought to form another row of the circle. Mel recognizes the recorder quartet from earlier with some of the Morris men, who appear to be playing a drinking game. The female recorder player, dressed like a principal boy, now carries a ukulele. Across the field the maypole lies dormant, its ribbons coiled.

Chris refills her cup, touches her lightly on the back and goes to rebuild the fire.

Lavender Boy looks at the sky, mutters something to his brother and takes off his shirt. From the other side of the circle, Pete looks at Mel with narrowed eyes. The boy unhurriedly turns the sleeves inside out and then sits by the fire holding them for a while, flames reflecting on his pale torso.

Pete creeps back across to Mel. ‘Go on,’ he says at her ear. ‘Ask him about his maypole.’

‘Shut up.’

The boy puts the shirt back on, inside out.

‘Show’s over. How disappointing.’ He whispers in her ear again. ‘Do you think he’s a virgin?’

‘Oh shut it now.’

‘He’s got lovely eyes, have you noticed?’

She hits him in the chest with her forearm and he laughs and moves away.

Bluegrass music drifts across the circle as the shadows fall. Some of the men from the bales are helping to build up the fire, discussing the stacking of wood. They ask the inner circle to move back a little, and everyone shuffles accordingly.

A huntshorn sounds from the forest. Mel hears it with a coursing of adrenaline, a reflex from her sabbing days. A few people look up and at each other, as if scenting something.

Chris goes to his kitbag and produces ritual kit – an antlered headdress, a veil, a cloak. He steps over the edge of the fire and crouches next to Mel.

‘Will you be the maiden?’ he says.

‘What?’

‘The maiden. In the dance.’