In spite of everything Megan is happy to have a home. It is not much: a house made from root-filled mud covered with thatch made from grass. There are small holes in the wall where the mud has already fallen away and the wind blows through; but at least it is shelter, and a place to stay, and Silas watches her as she arranges the things they have brought from home – her china and her small cupboard, their clock, her pans, some of the better rugs, the quilts and blankets. He stands at the doorway and watches her move. Her dress, the colour of chocolate, is loose on her now and is held in at her waist by a belt. He looks for the familiar curve of her rump or the swell of her breast, but there seems to be little under the cloth any more but more cloth. She makes a table of their trunk. They have to sit on the earth floor, which is not very flat even though it has been trampled over several times by the stallion, but once this is covered by rugs and the walls covered with blankets to keep out the draft, and the lamps are lit, it seems homely enough. Silas looks at her face in the lamplight, it is thinner and more drawn than it was, but when she sees him looking at her she smiles, and he smiles too.
‘Here,’ she says, passing him a tiny shoe. ‘It’s Myfanwy’s, I was saving it for Gwyneth but it’ll be better if you take it now instead.’
He looks at it dumbly.
‘You bury it, Silas,’ she says exasperatedly, ‘don’t you remember? You put it under the hearthstone for luck.’
Something inside his chest seems to clench and stop him breathing, like a fist of happiness. They are together again and it is all that matters. He lifts up the hearthstone and digs out a small hole and places the shoe inside.
‘Good,’ she says. ‘Y tylwyth teg will be pleased with that. We’ll be lucky now.’
‘Y tylwyth teg!’ he says, grabbing hold of her suddenly around the waist, and laughing. ‘Surely the little people can’t follow us here!’
‘They go everywhere,’ she says, pouting. Fairies, demons, bad spirits – he can never tell how much she believes – but she has always looked out for them assiduously.
Together they make supper – a bowl of mutton stew – then they put the children to sleep in a nest of blankets in the corner. For a few minutes they allow the precious tallow to burn while they change out of their clothes. Myfanwy gives a quiet snore as she turns over.
‘Here,’ he says. She watches from her seat on a box as he opens a bag she has never seen before and reveals two soft sheepskins. Her eyes widen.
‘A leaving present,’ he says, ‘From Muriel. She told me to keep them for you as a surprise when we got here.’
He spreads the skins out in front of the embers of the fire then reaches over to her and pulls her towards him. Her flesh used to spill from his hands but now his fingers fit easily around her. He breathes in the odour of her hair. Everything about her has become more intense: a musk instead of a fragrance; flesh that resists him rather than moulds to his hand – hot, savoury, tasting not just of salt but of something sweet. There are parts of her he no longer knows. He catches his breath. He longs for her so much it hurts. He pulls her down, presses himself to her, her convex back hard against his concave chest. Then he edges back slightly and raises his head so he can just see her face: it is motionless, watching the fire. He watches it too, the small glowing houses tumbling and crackling onto the earth.
She murmurs some words he can’t hear and he glides his hands around her again. Ah, he had forgotten how this feels: Megan’s skin, Megan’s hair, the contours of her valleys. She twists her head and kisses him and he remembers another time, another Megan, a Megan that did all the enticing and all the kissing. A Megan that came to her window at the sound of his voice and pulled him closer; the Megan before this one. He shuts his eyes and again finds her mouth with his.
In front of them the houses of the fire village gradually darken. Roof timbers collapse and walls fall, sending small cascades of sparks into the room. He glances towards Myfanwy and Gwyneth – two dark unmoving mounds – then reaches up beside him for one of the blankets from home. The yellows and blacks are shades of brown in the dying light of the fire. He snuffs out the tallow and its greasy smell drifts around them as they cover themselves with the thick cloth. There is little light left now but he can see the reflection of the fire’s glow in her eyes – and in the tears that are collecting on her cheeks. Beside them the tiny charred houses fall softly like snow from a steep roof.