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the thoughts skittering through her head. She cast a quick meaningful glance at her brother, who drew back into a shadow, leaving her to tackle me alone.
    â€˜The heifer and sheep are safe enough,’ she said carefully. ‘I would watch them if they needed me.’
    â€˜That may be so. But your father hopes to get more sheep, needing pasture further off. They will be for you to watch.’
    She nodded as if that needed no comment. Then she waited. I was filled with esteem for her in that moment. She had a strength I had not before perceived, arising from something in her I did not recognise. I knew then that I had already lost her, though she was not over ten years in age. She seemed to me not so much bewitched as in full possession of herself, fearless and certain. I was a poor broken old thing beside her, unfit to assert any authority over her. A struggle began inside me, violent enough to make me sit heavily on my bed and shed some bitter tears.
    â€˜Wynn - ‘ I began. ‘What - ?’ But I did not know the questions to ask her. She had been my firstborn, a sweet rosy baby, who had made few demands and learned rapidly all the skills of life. She walked many weeks before she completed her first year, and talked soon afterwards. She had looked after me when my back was ruined by Cuthman, and soon she looked after her little brother, too. I had no right, now, to wrest back the power. I had given it to her too early, and it was hers now, to do with as she might.
    And she was kindly in her strength. ‘Mam,’ she said, gently. ‘There is naught to worry you. Cuthie can hear mysteries, out on the tors, and we learn things together. Good things. Things which all people need to know.’
    â€˜Witches and magic!’ I spat, reviving a little under her tenderness. ‘Things the Holy Church has forbidden.’
    â€˜No!’ came a piping objection from the corner of the room. ‘‘Tis God who tells me the things. And God is good.’
    I gave up. Where my own mind was filled with shadows and confusions, my children were clear and sure. I had listened in my girlhood to the angry priest and his instructions, and had found them full of omissions and untruths. If Cuthman in his innocence could hear the true voice of God, I should rejoice. But I had in my mind a picture of the little boy standing against a pagan tree, mimicking Christ, and shuddered at how blasphemous it seemed.
    We did not speak of the matter again. The summer ended abruptly, with wind and rain and black skies. Edd bartered some of our oats and apples for a few ewes, and we set our energies into preparing for the winter, once again. The heifer grew and matured, well into her second year, and we were proud of her. The winter was easier that year, drier than usual, so our corn did not rot in the barn.
    I had no further trouble from the children the following summer. Wynn kept herself busy, spinning, gathering herbs and honey, tending the new lambs. If she and Cuthie did go back to the dolmen, it was in snatched half-days, and they were careful to show no signs when they came home. Edd took his lad with him most days, pulling out weeds, directing water to the corn along little channels they dug together, snaring pigeons and hares for the pot.
    Samhain came gently that year, after a golden autumn rich with nuts and fruits. The heifer was close to three years old, and ripe for slaughtering. We had promised meat to a number of people at the market, and the day was fixed.
    Wynn was ghostly white throughout that morning. The heifer calf had grown up under her ministrations, and the healthy creature owed much to the girl who had tended it. Killing a full grown cow was no light task, and we would all be involved. I felt my own insides watery and weak as the time came near. Edd sharpened the knife, again and again on a stone, and I saw how his eyes glistened. Cuthman alone seemed steady. ‘She won’t fight it,’ he