Mountain and geometric triangles on a wrist

Morwenna Trewin was the boatwright's daughter, and she carried the leftover paint from the harbour sheds up the scree in a tin bucket every evening after the nets were mended. Red for the hulls, teal for the oars, yellow ochre for the name boards. She would crouch on the shelf below the peak and fling a pinch of it at the rock, the way you'd throw salt over your shoulder, and then walk home with her hands stained to the wrist and nothing to show for it but the smell of linseed.

For a whole winter the mountain said nothing. Then one March the rain came sideways off the Atlantic and the grey face cracked clean across, and out came the colours in a slither. Triangles of yellow and green and red came sliding down the flank, tumbling over the bracken and into the sea wind, catching the light like broken glass. The men ran out with sacks. Old Jory Penhale got a green one for his dead brother's hat band. Mrs Clemo found an orange one wedged in her kitchen window and never did learn where it came from.

The peak is still grey, and you may climb to see it if your knees allow. But look down at the shelf where the diamond broke, and you'll find the pieces that stayed, glinting where the wet gets into the stones. Morwenna said the mountain only kept what it was given, and it had been given a great deal.