Joshua flung a muddy arm around his mother’s shoulders, and they both started talking at once. ‘We’re here. Father … is Father …?’

‘Oh, Joshua. I was so worried. And Hannah.’

She hugged him back, uncaring of his filthy state. Not able to rise because of his embrace, she extended a hand to her niece, squeezing it warmly. So warmly, in fact, that Hannah was in danger of losing circulation in her fingers.

‘We couldn’t come home. We had to wait out the storm in the village,’ Hannah explained.

‘How sensible.’ One hand occupied with her son, the other holding onto her niece, Aunt Constance had no hands spare to mop at her tear-stained face and sniffed like a toddler.

‘Father..?’ Joshua was in an agony of suspense.

Lips quivering, his mother replied, ‘He said … he said he was hungry!’

A wave of relief washed over Hannah and she couldn’t speak.

‘I can’t explain it. Just as the storm hit, he seemed to turn the corner towards recovery. He opened his eyes and said, “Mrs Stanton. I’m feeling rather peckish.”’ She had deepened her voice and gave a fair imitation of her husband. ‘Hannah, what’s that in your hand?’

She swung the gauze bag behind her back. ‘Oh, it’s a gift from someone in the village.’

‘Jothua,’ Deborah appeared in the doorway, her voice strident. Her nose screwed up with disapproval, she added, ‘You’re dirty. Farver wanths you and Hannah.’

Hannah wondered how she would feel when she saw her uncle after all that had happened. Both she and Uncle Henry had their own strong, often opposing ideas. She would always question things, which irritated him, but she couldn’t help it. Not only because, as her father said, she ‘was born with the word why already on her lips’, but also because questions were more important than the answers.

And of course, she sometimes disliked what Uncle Henry said or did. But he had begun to open his heart to her, shared memories of his brother—her father. Neither of them could pretend those things had not been said. Now she understood him a little. That helped and they would never again be strangers.

‘The Lord is merciful,’ said Aunt Constance. ‘We’re all together again.’ She smiled at Hannah. ‘Let this be a lesson to you, my dears. Prayer can work miracles.’

Could it? Hannah wondered. Was Uncle Henry’s recovery due to prayer, vakadraunikau, his own will to survive, coincidence—or a combination? She couldn’t be sure. Perhaps she never would be: which was fine with her. Then she could go on asking.