Moth beneath a crescent moon

The rain has not stopped since the feast of Saint Ulla, and the wardens of Hesk have begun to say the sky has been bewitched. I told them the sky has only forgotten how to be dry. Still, they have locked the tower bells, and no one rings them for the dead any more, because the dead are not lying still. They drift up the stairwell on the wet wind, grey as ash, and settle on the lamp glass as though they want to be let in.

Yesterday a moth came in the same way, through the broken shutter on the north side, and I thought it was one of those. It was the size of my hand, with eyes painted on its wings and four pale moons set into the dark like coins in a river. Master Oswin says the Hesk moths were bred from the old royal silk and fly only when the crescent is thin. The new moon hung over the lighthouse yard when it landed on my sleeve, so I did not swat it. I carried it down to the cistern and let it go under the grate.

I am writing because I have a favour to ask. Could you send me the ink from the blue pot in your mother's kitchen? The dashes I scratch on the cistern wall are the only way I can count the days now, and my pencil marks have washed away three times. I want to mark tonight's rain properly, one line for each drop that falls past the lamp.

Your loving brother, Piers