Edith couldn’t sleep. She read the letter again and again and knew that the sorrow of losing Demetrius was the sharpest of thorns. His gift to her, his love, was the rose. If it had been she who’d died, she would have wanted the same for him: not to waste his days in dreams of what could never be. She would have wanted him to play his violin, to love again. This letter told her that Demetrius understood her completely. He had seen the wild woman, the traveller within her, long before she had seen it in herself.

I’m not expecting to find my happiness in marriage and children, she thought. I know that’s not my story. Demetrius gave me a mirror so that I might see the infinite possibilities of love. Perhaps to truly love is to accept there will be change and only through change can love grow.

In the honeyed dawn of a new day she felt there was hope. His words were freedom. Hadn’t she stared death in the face?

Now she said aloud, ‘Give me the wisdom to be brave. Don’t let me make the past my cage.’

She stood, stretched out her arms and knew she was ready to leave the village.

The coffee was on the stove, the bread in the oven and she went out to feed the hens. She found two eggs as the cock crowed in the new day. As she went back to the house the sky was turning gun-black and fat droplets of rain were falling. When she reached the verandah, the rain was cascading onto the tiles.

‘A good morning for the burial,’ said Misha coming out of the bedroom. ‘Lena’s still asleep.’

Edith shook off the rain and poured the coffee. ‘Do you want an egg?’ she said.

They ate breakfast together.

The rain was pouring down and thunder growled its way into the yard.

‘You’ll get wet,’ said Edith.

She found her father’s old umbrella which he’d never used and now would never need. She gave it to Misha and followed him to the gate, her shawl over her head, and watched him carrying an invisible wreath of rage to lay on the butcher’s coffin.

At the crossroads the blacksmith, huddled under an oilskin, waited in his cart for Misha. In the back, next to the coffin, sat the priest and next to the priest was the priest’s trunk. While they waited the priest tried to negotiate a price with the blacksmith to take him to the main road that led to the town.

The blacksmith refused. ‘You spread lies about Flora,’ he said simply. ‘Why should I do anything for you?’

‘Out of kindness?’ suggested the priest.

‘As kindness and cruelty were both the same to you and the butcher, who’s to say I’m not being kind?’

The priest didn’t say another word.