The room begins to fill with a flock of bleating sheep, or so she imagines, and she can hardly see her grandmother. Counting the sheep, Edith falls asleep.

She wakes and thinks she’s in a bed. Perhaps this bed is given to all silent women so they might rest awhile before they disappear into dust, their lives marked only by small graves, their footsteps hardly seen in the snow.

Her limbs are cold, ice fills the centre of her. She is lying on the floor. From here she takes in the cabin. At least it has a roof and two rooms, and the door is now shut firm against the outside world. Through the broken shutters the sun shines in a bright line across the floor. Last night the darkness felt as thick as velvet and she hadn’t been able to see the whole cabin to know how big or small it was. There is a table, two chairs. Her hands shaking, she lights the stove and begins to explore every nook and cranny. There are storage jars filled with oats, barley, flour and dried pulses. Whoever lived here would not leave it with a larder this full.

In the other room is a bed with a mattress, a fur thrown across it. She wraps the fur round her. At the foot of the bed is a large chest, full of more furs, linens. There’s a knife and a box with six needles, red thread, a thimble and a pair of scissors. Three boxes of candles. A flint box, a bar of soap. How strange – such luxuries to be abandoned. And she thinks, what does it matter? I’m wearing a wedding dress. I ran into a clearing, found a deserted cabin. I fell asleep on a frozen wooden floor.

Where would she want to be? Here or back in the village, married to the butcher? The thought makes her shudder. No, this place, this interlude, is to be relished, to be enjoyed. She is free here until death claims her.

Outside the snow glimmers, pink and purple. The forest, a dark impenetrable wall, surrounds her. She opens the door of the cabin to find two dead rabbits there, tied together with a bunch of herbs. The snow shows no sign of footprints. The forest, her grandmother would tell her, is where all healing stories come from and a stranger’s kindness can save your life. Edith listens to the silence; there is no pulse of another life to it. The snow makes the world sleepy in its hibernation.