She asks the snowwomen if he came searching for his violin.

‘Yes, he put it under his chin to play you a lullaby but you were already asleep.’

This pretence near defeats her. She feels her longing for Demetrius as an ache inside her.

He is dead. I saw him dead. I know he is dead.

She crumbles into the snow. This one thought is all it takes to pull down her dreams and she is overwhelmed by a terrible sense of abandonment. What will she do? Go back down the mountain? Where would she go? Back to her village and the vengeance of the butcher?

She makes mushroom soup with the stock from a pheasant and goes to bed, hoping she’ll dream of him.

She dresses. A ray of weak sunshine turns the snow pink. She makes porridge from the oats and dreams of honey to sweeten it. Because I’m silent, it doesn’t mean there are no words in me. You just can’t hear me. Because I can’t see you, it doesn’t mean you’re not here. I know you are. You are in everything that has kept me safe and given me a place of rest so I might gather the missing words.

The silence is shattered by the barking of dogs, the shouts of men, a barrage of sound that startles Edith’s senses. She hears the rustle of trees, the thud of snow and in the clearing a bear cub stops, terrified, and cries into the forest. Even before Edith sees the huntsmen, she has one arm in the coat, and is half out of the cabin. Conscious only of the bear, the small vulnerable bear, she lifts the animal; the weight of the tiny creature causes her to stumble. She smells the forest in its fur, smells its fear. She straightens and turns back to the cabin, the little bear clinging to its rescuer.

Two huntsmen appear in the clearing, their guns levelled at her.

One of them, who has a feather in his hat, shouts, ‘Put it down. It’s our kill. A fair chase. Put the bear down.’

Edith stands her ground. The bear nuzzles into her coat, whimpering. She recognises the other man. He’s the mayor’s son. He lowers his gun.

The huntsman with a feather in his hat does not. He shouts, louder this time, ‘Did you hear me, girl?’

The mayor’s son is staring at Edith. Then he quickly looks about him and back the way he came.

‘Leave it,’ he says. ‘We’ve lost our party.’

‘We’ve spent the morning chasing it,’ says the huntsman with the feather. ‘It’s my kill.’

‘It’s not much of a bear,’ says the mayor’s son.

The other turns on him. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ He moves towards Edith but the mayor’s son takes hold of his jacket.