Celtic knotwork fish design

The salmon came up the Wenning on the third day of the flood, the same week the bramleys started dropping in Ashdown's orchard. You'll not believe me, so I've left the gaff hanging on the hawthorn by the lane for you to see. Ashdown's boy went down to the weir with it and came back white as lime, swearing the fish had turned its head in the air and looked at him like a magistrate deciding a fine.

You said last Michaelmas that the river is only water going somewhere and nothing in it has a purpose. Maybe so. But this one was knotted all over, Hal. Bands of silver crossed over and under each other the way the withies go on the eel traps, and along its belly ran a row of little rings, as if someone had counted the scales with a compass. It took the weir in one long stroke with its jaw open, as though it meant to take hold of the sky and pull itself up by it.

Nobody has caught it. The boy says it's still lying in the pool below the sluice, too stubborn to go up and too proud to go back. I walk down each evening with a windfall in my coat and I leave one on the stone for it, which I know is foolish. Yesterday the apple was gone and there were three scales on the stone, bright as coins, each one ringed in a tight little circle.

I've kept them in the tin where Mum used to keep the buttons. Come home before the frost and see them. If the fish is still there, I'll tell you which of us it was waiting for.

Your sister, Megan