Excitement tightens her belly as she pushes the books to one side and grabs a block of drawing paper and a stick of charcoal. She works quickly, narrowing her eyes, making bold, fast strokes of smudgy black on the page as she strives to capture what it was she saw in the vision. The graceful arc of its neck. The proud bearing of its head. The deep-set, luminous eyes. The muscular limbs that powered it silently through the water. After half an hour of sketching she stares at her work, biting her bottom lip thoughtfully.

Yes. Or at least, almost. Won’t know until I go further. Too soon to tell.

Jumping from her stool, she hurries over to the bin of clay and takes out a large lump of the gritty brown earth. This binful has already been wedged and pummeled so that no air remains inside, so that it should not pop during firing and explode the piece. After a few moments of kneading and turning, the material is sufficiently malleable to be used. Tilda pauses, brushing her hair from her face with her arm, her hands already sticky with clay. The uneven light from the oil lamp glints off the inch of bracelet that peeps out of her shirt pocket. She nods.

‘Okay,’ she says to herself, to the slumbering dog and to any other souls who might be listening, ‘let’s begin.’

SEREN