‘Imagine losing such a child,’ Ruth says, ‘you would have to suppress the delight you felt at its death for you know it is wrong, and the emotion would be so mixed up with your natural love for what you made be born.’

‘But he was at the age where his milk teeth were falling out anyway, so it could have been one of his own,’ Neasa says, ‘but it was a big tooth, more like an ash tree’s, I suppose, than the slender and crooked hawthorn’s.’

‘Do you feel Raghnailt would mourn Colca?’ Concessa asks Neasa. ‘I would not mourn him, and I know Raghnailt is good, though she has put up with much pains.’

‘I teased Séamus a lot over his hiding his baby teeth like that,’ Ruth says. ‘And I pretended sometimes to be a tree and kiss him, and this would make him laugh, but he would get angry too, sometimes.’

‘That is not your story to tell, nor your memory to have, Ruth,’ Neasa says, growing angry. ‘That happened to me, and not you, and I never told anyone so you could not know it, and it could not have happened to you for you have never been at the tree. Only I tie ribbons to it. Only me. My father is dead.’

‘Segnat’s teeth were so loose she could pluck them out of her mouth as one would pluck a flower,’ Concessa says, ‘but she was an old woman, then.’

Samthánn has covered a quarter of the house with her drawings now, moving her way towards the door. Her arms are sore and she feels lightheaded. The drawings come quick, pouring out of her. One tiny eye still follows her around the room. It is the hen, she feels its gaze. She feels she is surrounding them in her drawings, entrapping them in her visions.

‘Why do you think this child resents us?’ Concessa says. ‘What is she daubing? My house is a wreck, and I would not have these dirty pictures along the wall. They are obscene.’

‘It is too hot,’ Neasa says.

She fans herself with the end of her skirts, blowing hay about her.

‘The child does not resent us,’ Ruth says. ‘She is telling us things. They are quite beautiful, no?’

Ruth rises stiffly. Her knees crack as she shuffles towards the pillar. She kicks the sleeping piglet under some hay, hiding it. It squeals once, a sound of surrender.

‘She is a Gael, no?’ Concessa asks. ‘I do not understand these markings. They are squiggles; nonsense, full of hate.’