Owl and house on a thigh

The owl came back to the roof again last night, and I have stopped pretending to myself that it is only a bird. Its eyes catch the lamp from the kitchen window and hold it, the way the coals in the grate do when the damper is pulled. Mother's cottage is still standing where Father left it on the hillside above Stannard Fold, though the chimney has lost two courses since the storm.

The hand came up out of the bog the week after you left. I dug it out with the spade, and it was not a hand exactly, more the shape of one, all knuckles and wet root, holding nothing at all. Mrs Pilling from the mill says that is how the old ones carried houses when the valley people moved on in winter: lift the cottage by its roots and walk it down to where the water runs sweeter. I laughed at her. Then I found green leaves in the dresser drawer in the middle of February, and I stopped laughing.

Last night I put a candle in the window and took the cups down from their hooks. The owl dropped from the rafter onto the sill, folded its wings like a shawl, and watched me until the wick guttered. I think it wants feeding, or it wants company on the walk. I have packed the blue bowl and Father's Bible in the wool sack.

If the hand is moving, I will know by morning. Come home if you can. Leave the boat at Corran and bring the good lantern, the one with the cracked glass, because the owl will not come near anything bright.

Your loving sister, Hester