The fact that Flora earned a living and wasn’t dependent upon a man was one of the reasons she was looked on in the village with suspicion. The other reason was that she wasn’t married and no one could see a rhyme or reason to that one.

‘I had hoped to be back in time for her wedding,’ said Flora. ‘I’m sorry to have missed it. She’s been much on my mind.’

‘When does it make the noise?’ asked the butcher.

‘It makes a soft noise on the half hour and on the quarter, and then a full-blown cuckoo on the hour,’ said the blacksmith.

‘Then there are four minutes until I hear it,’ said the butcher.

Flora put down her coffee cup and was going to excuse herself when the butcher said, ‘It’s not yet.’ She couldn’t think what he was referring to. ‘You haven’t missed it.’

Flora looked at her brother who shrugged.

‘Edith’s marriage to Demetrius?’ she said.

‘No,’ said the butcher. ‘The shepherd never came back to the village. He probably went off and married another girl.’

Flora stared at him incredulously. ‘What makes you think that?’ she said. ‘Did anyone go looking for him when he failed to return?’

‘What?’ said the butcher. ‘Pull him back by the scruff of his neck like a dog and make him marry Edith?’

Flora felt herself bristling with anger. ‘There would be no making him – or Edith for that matter – do…’ She stopped. The butcher’s eyes were hard.

‘Edith is marrying me,’ he said. ‘I’ve told her she can be married in a wedding dress, the kind you make for those fancy ladies down there in the town.’

‘You?’ she said. ‘She is to marry you?’

The news was so shocking that she hardly knew what to say. ‘Edith… Edith has agreed?’

The butcher ignored the question and said, ‘A white wedding dress to match her hair.’

‘Edith’s hair is black,’ said Flora.

‘It turned white on the night she stopped talking,’ said the butcher.

Flora was about to speak when the butcher put up his hand to stop her.

‘Enough. No more questions. She is to have a white wedding dress. You are to make it.’

‘I can’t,’ said Flora. ‘It’s forbidden by the village elders. You of all people know that. No one from here has ever been married in anything other than the traditional costume. The flax grown in the fields, spun here on the spinning wheels, the cloth woven, cut and stitched by hand. Edith showed me the skirt and blouse that she was going to be married in. Why would she want a modern wedding gown?’

The question hung as heavy as the snow-filled sky.

Cuckoo. Cuckoo.