Try as he might to keep it light, the whole scene was eerie enough to keep them from drifting apart. It was maddening to think that not a single one of his interviewees thought to mention this. Ben now realised he might have been asking the wrong questions.

Adults went about tossing vegetables and anything unwanted from their doorways. Their combined waste soon ringed the common, left to decay under the moonlight or else fatten the belly of those animals that only awaken to see the stars. Nobody had offered anything in the way of food or shelter. Maybe they were both in short supply, much like their kindness.

Ben had thought the Tír Mallachts to be a dysfunctional people, secretive for seclusion’s sake. But now he suspected that something more insidious was at play. Superstitious shackles bound them to this sorry existence.

No child was seen to complain. There were no tearful pleas for a later bedtime. Ben thought of Aoife and how she would haggle like a hostage negotiator, always trying to free a few more minutes. Sad as it was, there were weeks when a little extra time before bed was all he could afford to give her.

But that’s why he was here. This project of Sparling’s would change everything.

The last door slammed.

A calmness fell over the village like a black sheet of silk. Faint, razor lines of light framed some of its doorways. But otherwise the darkness there was unbroken; the air crystal and clean. Within the cottages’ stone walls there were no voices or music. Long was the night and they would spend it waiting for the dawn.

Tír Mallacht seemed more sinister in the silence. Ben could feel the hairs rising one by one, on his neck, his scalp, and across both arms as he drew them in tighter. No matter where they pitched their tent, it would never be far enough from the sight of all those moonlit tombs. He imagined shelves lining their walls; adults and children stacked atop one another, dead until the sunrise breathed fresh life into their bodies.

Chloe slipped the rucksack from her shoulders and rummaged through its front pocket. The hood of her jacket flopped over as she crouched down, hiding her head in a mass of fur. A hand extended to Ben, holding one of the slender Maglite torches they had bought courtesy of Sparling’s envelope. He twisted it on and a pillar of light extended through the dark. Ben waved his hand over it, half-hoping to feel some warmth. The night was only going to get colder.

No matter what the hours ahead held in store, the darkness and the distance colluded to trap them in Tír Mallacht until morning. Ben shone his light around the meagre world within its reach. There was nothing else.

It was one night, that’s all. He was glad now that the wasp wanted them gone so soon.