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announced themselves with the sound of drums and tambourines and tin whistles. There was a girl no older than herself with gold rings in her ears who could walk like a spider across a tightrope while her lizard body could turn and bend and wriggle as if it had no bones to hold it in place. The old woman had always longed to wear those glittering gold rings, to move with that same slippery grace.
    The red-haired girl sat patiently beside her grandmother and watched her as she watched, although she could not see what she was seeing.
    By mistake the old woman allowed herself to pause in front of the image of a horse in the rain. She felt a sense of dread well up inside her but she could not remember what was going to happen next. Then once more she felt the shock of terror when the horse toppled over and collapsed into the mud, staring at her with empty dead eyes. She gripped tightly at her granddaughter’s hand until the beast had been dragged away and was gone.
    Suddenly she saw her father, so thin and frail, sitting by the fire, the red light from the flames dancing on his skin. Her mother was there with him, peeling potatoes, but they ignored each other. “My mother was a big woman like me,” she said and her granddaughter nodded in agreement because she had been told this before.
    It was then that the Bad Winter began. She turned her head away but she could not escape from the icebound soil or from the hungry people drifting across the landscape, searching for anything that might serve as food. The houses that had been filled with life were now empty and their windows and open doors stared at her in their desolation.
    â€œThat was when I left my village,” she said. “I was the only one who did not die. A man who was like Saint Christopher found me. He lifted me onto his back and brought me here. I was afraid of the cries of the seagulls until I got used to them. I had never seen the sea before.”
    â€œI am sometimes afraid of the seagulls,” said the red-haired girl. “They can be very fierce. I think they pulled the mermaid to pieces and only left a scrap of her hair, but Sally says she escaped and came back later.”
    â€œSo then I was here,” said the old woman emphatically, not interested in other people’s stories.
    The procession was different now. There were fewer strangers, fewer animals, no birds or fish. The distinction between day and night was less clearly defined. People from the past came lumbering noisily into the room and sat themselves down at the end of the bed, demanding attention. Thered-haired girl still could not see them or hear what they said but she watched her grandmother’s response to each new arrival.
    The old woman’s husband came in and she shouted out his name and ducked her head to avoid a blow from his fist. But then he had gone. “He’s dead now,” she said, with relief and an edge of surprise in her voice.
    â€œOh good,” said the girl, who had never met him but knew all about his foul temper.
    The past was drawing closer and closer to the present now and the old woman’s face was becoming luminous and transparent from the effort of remembrance.
    â€œI am getting there,” she said softly, and her granddaughter was startled because the familiar voice had never before sounded so gentle and submissive.
    â€œI am an old woman in bed,” she said at last, grinning rather foolishly, as if she had done something wrong and hoped to escape punishment.
    She never spoke again. In the morning the red-haired girl woke to find that the body lying beside her was cold and still.
    She got dressed and moved around the room, arranging things and putting them in their place before going to fetch the priest. She saw a little horn button on the floor and picked it up and dropped it into her pocket. Later she sewed it onto one of her own dresses that had a button missing. It was another way of remembering.

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    T he leper