Lightning bolt and triangle on fingers

"Lightning," he said round the cap, tapping a bolt he'd sketched, "the one that split the oak by the gate. Seven of us saw it, so Carys says that makes it official." He flipped the paper over. A triangle, a circle tucked inside, a single stroke running down the middle. "Three things nobody can take off you. Dafydd reckons it's a dead man's symbol. Dafydd is wrong about most things."

Carys arrived at nine with a rucksack that clinked. She did the bolt first, while Huw swore in Welsh and I held the torch steady over the kitchen table. Then mine, which took longer, because I kept flinching at the buzz and making her go back over the lines. Nobody mentioned the rain drumming on the roof or the marquee pole lying flat in the field.

By the time the speeches started, the bolt was pink and cross and my own triangle gave a thin sting every time I moved my hand. The generator coughed, the lights dipped, and Dafydd stood at the front with his notes shaking. He looked at Huw's finger, then at mine, then down at the cards, and read out the wrong name from the wrong card. Nia laughed so hard she had to sit down on the hay.