‘No. Not yet, anyhow. Who knows what’ll happen? I’ve come to expect the worst with sheep. We’ve fenced off that corner of the field where the dead ones were and moved the rest higher up.’

‘So you think it was mebbe summat they ate, like some poisonous weed?’

‘Aye, I reckon so. We didn’t find owt but mebbe they ate all that there was.’

‘I’ll … I’ll just go and speak to Mrs B,’ said Gina quietly, sidling towards the back door. There was nothing she wanted to say to her father about the dead sheep, and she badly needed to go somewhere quiet to think. A very strange idea was nagging at her head.

‘Yes, just go,’ said Dora dismissively. ‘Say we’re all sorry to hear about the sheep.’

‘Yes, Mum.’

Gina went, putting her shoes on outside and deciding she’d rather have the space the walk afforded her to think than take the bike. She wandered up the lane a little but stopped before she came within sight of the farm. There was hawthorn in bloom in the hedge, but the pungent sweet-sour scent of the May blossom repelled her today, and she found a grassy place away from it. She sat down by the hedge, resting her chin on her knees.

Philip had said the dead sheep were in the lower field, and near the wall. That was the field next to where she and Ellen had been lazing about the previous afternoon. Gina recalled hearing the ewes calling as she’d watched those strangely formed clouds. She thought about how she had made the excuse of fastening the gate as a chance to hide the little bottle she’d used for the magic spell in the gap between two stones, a place both noticeable but also reasonably discreet. Then, after Nell had seen the bottle, she’d thrown it away, thinking it was a waste of time … or perhaps that it wouldn’t work once she’d taken it out from its hiding place … She wasn’t quite sure what exactly she had thought. She didn’t really believe in it, yet she had believed completely when she’d cast the spell earlier that afternoon. She felt confused now, and worried. She’d definitely thrown the tiny bottle over the wall without a thought, though.