‘Can I see if I can make the pulley work?’ said Misha.

The afternoon became evening and the oxcarts trundled over the cobblestones into the village, a drumbeat for a sunset. The farmers returned from the fields while the women stood gossiping on their doorsteps. They stopped when they saw the priest.

‘Good evening,’ he said, raising his hat to them.

He knew they’d been talking about the butcher’s attack on Edith. He was on his way to have a word with him.

In his slaughterhouse, his hand resting on his favourite knife, the butcher felt calmness return to him, his pent-up rage spent. He breathed in the cold evening air as the day was lost in darkness. It wouldn’t surprise him if there was late snow. He picked up his knife and returned to the parlour where his mother still waited in the shadows near the cuckoo clock.

He was pouring himself a drink when he heard the double knock on the front door. The butcher opened it without bothering to see who it was; only the priest knocked that way. He turned from him and went into the parlour.

‘What were you thinking?’ said the priest.

‘A drink?’ said the butcher.

‘No, thank you.’

‘Can you see her?’ said the butcher.

For a moment the priest thought he meant Edith. ‘You could have killed her. What you did this afternoon was witnessed by half the village. They’re out there now, whispering about it.’

‘She’s sitting where she always sits.’

The priest was tripped up by an altogether more worrying thought – the butcher was becoming unhinged.

‘Who?’ he asked nervously.

‘My mother,’ said the butcher. He sat down heavily and pointed into the dark of the room. ‘She’s there.’

The priest had worked with the butcher long enough and profitably enough to know to handle him with care when certain moods were on him.

‘How did she survive?’ said the butcher, his eyes fixed on the apparition. ‘No one can survive a winter on the mountain.’

‘Your mother?’ said the priest.

‘No – Edith!’ shouted the butcher.

The priest took a step back when light caught the silver blade of the knife the butcher was playing with. The room felt uncomfortably hot.

‘You must pull yourself together,’ said the priest gently, using the voice he saved for the confessional, for gathering little items of gossip. Some with hooks enough to bring in a tidy sum. ‘We have so much at stake.’