Her intention is to fashion her trademark large, bulbous pots, and to work onto them these intricate, flowing designs. She has not yet decided on colors. Should she use mottled, natural finishes, or opt for deep, rich glazes? As she chews her pencil in thought, her eyes look up from the page, so that she is unable to avoid staring directly at her cold, inert kiln. The sight of it brings home an inescapable fact. Without a reliable power supply, she cannot switch the kiln on or, should it work long enough to reach the needed temperature, risk firing her work inside it.

No power equals no firing. No firing, no pots. No pots, no money.

She frowns, biting hard on the wood of the pencil, resisting the voice in her head that is telling her that drawing anything is pointless because she cannot, as things stand, translate her designs into ceramic objects. With a sigh she turns and squints out of the window. The rain is lessening, and the grubby cloud is beginning to lift. She can barely see the lake, but there is a glimmer on the tops of the hills beyond that suggests the weather is, slowly, improving. Remembering her binoculars, she leaves her sketch pad on the floor and goes in search of them. There is a stack of boxes in the corner of the studio, which seems as good a place as any to begin. She opens and closes several packing cases, bracing herself for photographs of Mat, or momentos of their time together. Mercifully, she finds what she is looking for within minutes. Standing at the picture window, she adjusts the glasses to her eyes and scans the lake. The church is easy enough to find, its tower a dark gray shape amidst the almost monochrome landscape. Even the water of the lake itself has lost all vestige of color, leaving it a pool of liquid metal dotted with smudged birds of indiscernible type. The crannog is similarly drab today, and even the powerful lenses do not reveal any helpful detail.