Greyscale portrait tattoo on thigh

The bats came back to the Scarrow Pass the week after the snow cleared, thousands of them pouring out of the crack in the rock at dusk like smoke that had decided to fly. Mr Anwyl says they come every spring and that we should be glad of them, because they eat the midges that rise off the lake. I have stopped arguing with him about most things since Father's funeral, so I am glad of them, and I leave the lamp lit in the front window so they have something to steer by.

The photographer who stayed three nights in October left us a portrait before he went down the valley. It is a face worked out of silver grey, a young man with a tired mouth and eyes that look past the viewer toward the window. He paid for his room with it rather than coin. Mrs Anwyl hung it above the kitchen range, where the stove smoke curls up and darkens the corners. She says it is bad luck to take it down, so it stays, and every morning I find myself nodding to him as though he were a lodger.

Last Tuesday a cart came up with two men and a crate of red ink for the printing works at Llan Hafod, and one of them knocked the tin against the step. The ink ran across the flagstones in spatters, and Mr Anwyl laughed until he had to sit down on the mounting block. I have decided it is a sign, though I cannot tell you of what.

Tell me whether the sea is as grey there as it is here. I will post this with the carrier on Friday, and if the bats have not gone by then I will write again to say so.

Your loving sister, Nell