But the widow found herself shouting at a closed wooden door.

‘That was better than stealing cherries when we were young,’ said Lena, laughing.

‘Much, much better,’ said Edith.

Misha was waiting on the verandah and Edith left them together and went to feed the hens. She thought, I should have said fifteen minutes before he put the dumplings in. Never mind. She gave up worrying about supper and walked down to the stream and sat a while, staring through the orchard at the snow-topped mountain. She had a feeling that Demetrius was near her again.

Vanda and Una had decided that afternoon to clear out the butcher’s house, something they wanted to do together. Sorina had asked to help and the three of them had built a fire in the yard from all the furniture that had been associated in their minds with the butcher’s mother. Her shawl lay on top of the pile. They set fire to it and watched the flames devour it, hungry for the feast.

Before they left, Sorina said, ‘There’s something Edith should have.’ Una went with her into the bedroom and from under the bed Sorina pulled a pair of boots. Curled inside one was a letter. ‘They belonged to the shepherd.’

That night, the moon rose, massive in its roundness, and sat for a moment on top of the church spire.

No one knew how the blaze started but it was thought that a spark from the fire that Una, Vanda and Sorina had made in the butcher’s yard might have been the cause. It was indeed windy that afternoon. But whatever it was, the butcher’s house was well and truly alight. It stood apart from the other houses so there was no great urgency to put out the flames. Edith saw the sparks rise into the sky and, as Misha and Lena had no interest in anything except each other, she joined the rest of the villagers watching the butcher’s house burn. It was an hypnotic sight and had to it a justice that she hadn’t known was needed before she saw the house in flames.

Vanda found her in the crowd.

‘These were under the butcher’s bed,’ she said, giving her a pair of boots. ‘There’s a letter tucked in one of them.’

Edith remembered the day she had first seen Demetrius, the boots next to him on the bench outside the cobbler’s. She held them tight to her, too stunned to think what to say.

The priest watched the fire from a window of his house. It was proof, he was certain, that the butcher would come back as a bloodless one. He had seen him in his nightmares, the wax from a candle dripping onto dead flesh.