His father smiled and ruffled his hair. ‘I know you did. But she doesn’t belong here.’
Jonathan turned to fetch a second load of logs, but when he got to the door he turned back, unconsoled.
‘Is it finished, Dad?’
‘Finished?’
Jonathan watched his father put his head on one side and gaze up at the dark corner where the stories came from. Then his eyes came back to Jonathan and he shook his head.
‘This is just the beginning, son. There’s a long way still to go.’
Part 2
Things Don’t Add Up
SITTING ON THE bottom step of the stairs, Lily pushed her right foot into a boot. She held on to the tongue so that it would not get trapped under the laces, but her stocking rucked half a dozen wrinkles at the back of her heel and wedged her foot forwards. She sighed. Her boots were always conspiring to thwart her. Nothing was ever right with them. They pressed on her bunions, they rubbed her raw, and no matter how much straw she packed them with overnight, they always kept a little bit of dampness back to chill her in the morning. She eased her foot out, straightened the stocking, tried again.
When both her boots were on, Lily buttoned up her coat and wound a scarf round her neck. She did not put on gloves, for she had none. Outside, the cold sliced through her coat without resistance and sharpened its blade against her skin, but she scarcely noticed. She was used to it.
Her morning routine never varied. First she went down to the river. Today the level was as she expected, neither high nor low. There was no angry rush and no menacing loitering. The water did not hiss particularly, nor roar, nor dart spiteful splashes at her hem. It flowed steadily, wholly engaged on some calm business of its own, and had not the slightest interest in Lily and her doings. She turned her back on it and went to feed the pigs.
Lily filled one bucket with grain and the other with swill. It released a warmly rotten aroma into the air. The gilt came to the dividing wall as was her habit. She liked to raise her head and scratch the underside of her chin on the top of the low wall. Lily scratched the spot behind the pig’s ears at the same time. The gilt grunted in pleasure and gave her a look from beneath her ginger eyelashes. Lily heaved the two buckets out and round to the feeding place, tottering under the weight. One by one, she tipped the contents of the buckets into the trough and then pulled back the planks that barred the opening. When she had done that, she took her own breakfast out of her pocket – one of the less bruised apples from the shelf – and bit into it. She didn’t mind a bit of company at breakfast time. The boar came out first – he always did, males put themselves first in everything – and lowered his snout immediately to the trough. The female came after him, her eyes still fixed on Lily, so that once more Lily wondered what the reason could be for such a stare. It was an odd look, almost human, as if the pig wanted something.
Lily finished the flesh of the apple and dropped the core into the pen, making sure it landed where the boar would not see it. The gilt gave her one last indecipherable look – regret? Disappointment? Sorrow? – then lowered her snout to the ground and the apple core disappeared.
Lily cleaned the buckets and put them back in the woodshed. A glance at the sky told her it was time to set off to work, but first, one last thing. She shifted a few logs from the pile and removed one from the third row down. From the front it looked like all the others, but at the back a hollow had been carved out of it. She tilted it and a number of coins rolled out and into her palm. She took care to replace the logs just as she had found them. Indoors she eased a loose brick from the fireplace. Though it looked no different from the others it came away easily, revealing a small cavity behind. She placed the money in the cavity and slid the brick back into place, ensuring that it