How could they forget? The mayor’s son had sworn he’d witnessed Edith tear the flesh from his friend’s face and suck the blood from him. Nor had they forgotten that the mayor’s son had told them how he and his friend had got away: the sun had shone through the trees into Edith’s eyes and she, being terrified of sunlight, had disappeared into the snow.

Today they’d seen her, as solid as a Sunday prayer. Wild-looking, yes, but she did not shun the sunlight. The six elders had noted that the butcher had stumbled when he saw her and clutched at his heart. Now, as he bible-thumped his warning, they saw a man irrationally obsessed with the woman he’d lost.

‘The two young men were brought back to the village,’ said the butcher, warming once more to his favourite subject, ‘and you know what the huntsman said as he lay dying.’

They did. Seven bears. Edith stood tall among seven bears. Her feet never touching the ground. It had sounded suspiciously like a fairy tale Edith’s grandmother used to tell, of the seven bears and the brier rose. Wasn’t there also a princess in the story whose feet never touched the ground? They also knew that the doctor had insisted that the huntsman’s wounds were consistent with those of a bear attack.

‘The mayor’s son has been ill ever since, a sickness brought on by Edith,’ said the butcher. ‘We should arrest her, question her, before she infects us all.’

‘Infects us? With what?’ asked the miller.

‘Bewitches us. Remember the wedding dress, the avalanche? We must question her about the attack on the huntsman.’

That Easter Sunday, the six elders who all that winter had felt themselves to be a nodding chorus to the butcher’s demands, saw a chink of light. Easter was, after all, a time of resurrection, of new beginnings.

‘On another matter,’ said an elder, ‘an important matter, we want to know who gave you permission to release the shepherd’s body to his brother. The mayor didn’t sign those papers.’

‘This,’ he said, hitting his fist into his hand, ‘this matter of the attack is more important than a dead shepherd.’

The other six elders strongly disagreed.

The mayor’s wife, Georgeta, hadn’t been among the congregation that morning. Her son had had a bad night.

At their midday meal her husband told her about the creature who’d appeared outside the church.

‘Rubbish!’ she said, shooting a furious look at him. ‘I refuse to believe that Edith is one of the bloodless.’

‘How else could she have survived such a harsh winter?’ said the mayor.

‘By her own wit,’ said his wife.

‘You still doubt our son?’ said the mayor.