Skull, butterfly and rose with rosary beads

The men from the estate turned up a skull in the nettles behind the kitchen wall on Monday, and Mr Hollis wanted it tipped in the midden with the broken slates. I asked for it instead. The teeth at the front are chipped, as if it once bit down on something hard. I have set it on the sill of the old refectory, beside the rosary Father Aldous left in the gatehouse drawer. The brass cross has gone green, and two of the jet beads have dark red flecks that Mrs Penrose says are only the stone.

Every morning I cut the best of the climbing roses before I walk down to the village. They are the pink ones Mother planted, the ones that kept flowering even after the roof went. I leave a bloom at the skull's feet, the way she used to leave bread out for the robins.

On Thursday a butterfly came in through the gap where the east window was, blue and violet with a pale edge. It settled on the crown of the skull as if the bone were warm, and it stayed there the whole afternoon while the rain came and went. I stood in the doorway and did not dare breathe. I think I understood then that nothing in here is being kept from anybody.

So I am leaving it be. Mr Hollis can have the slates. When you come home at Michaelmas, bring the good secateurs, and we will cut the roses together and set one beside the skull, and let the butterfly choose what it likes.

Your loving sister, Nell