This is what I see. The ax lying on the floor. Light coming in from the open window. A green gown. Something white near it, maybe a shirt. Next to them, more old bones and rubbish. A skull. Two skulls. Little men and women in cloaks, kneeling in a circle.

And over the other side of the room, crouching in the shadows, something else. Someone else, crying. Someone with bright red hair and a leather cap, and the face of a monster. Someone in a gown and a breast-piece, with a body all twisted with pain, someone with hands like claws. It’s her. It’s the worst thing come true.

For a bit I can’t move. My heart’s all knotted up, so tight I can’t breathe. Maybe it’s a nightmare and I’ll wake up soon. But it’s not. I know it’s not.

She must see it in my face. What I’m feeling. No hiding it. I walk over, crouch down beside her, and she pushes me away with those ghastly hands, making sounds like a creature in its death throes. Her mouth’s got too many teeth, her jaw’s all out to the side, there’s no way she can speak, but she’s trying to tell me something; she’s struggling to get the words out. Pointing, gesturing, only the claws won’t do what she wants.

“Gently, gently,” I say. I sit on the floor and gather her into my arms. “Take your time. It’s all right. I’m here.” As if I could fix her trouble. The old Blackthorn, the one she was before, would be laughing at that.

She tries again. Puts a hand on the pouch at her belt. Says something with oo and ee in it, but there’s no making it out. The wee folk are up out of their circle. They’re lifting the bones and laying them down again in some kind of pattern. Dear God . . .

“Oo! Uh! Ee!” growls Blackthorn, hammering a hand against my chest. Only, not a hand; a poor misshapen thing. But Bonehead can’t work out what she’s saying. The pouch? Something in the pouch?

I spot a scrap of red; reach in and pull out the red kerchief, the one she left for me once as a way of saying good-bye. That’s the last straw. I hold her close and cry my heart out. Rock her to and fro. Tell her I’ll be here, I won’t leave her, I’ll look after her even if it takes two hundred years. Got my eyes shut, but I hear the soft sounds of those wee folk doing what they’re doing, which I can guess is laying out what’s left of Geiléis and her man. Wouldn’t be much after two hundred years. Bones and dust. Memories.

Her hands are sharp against me. Shocking, hideous hands. I think of those hands stitching a wound. Laying flat stones on a dead man’s eyes. Making a rude sign when Slammer called her names. Gripping an ax like she meant business. Holding a sick babe. Making a brew. Reaching out to pull me back from the brink, the night I lost hope. I sob and sob until it’s a wonder there’s any more tears in me. Wipe my face with the red kerchief.