Small bird tattoo on a forearm

The swifts have gone from the eaves of the Col inn, all at once, the way they do when the wind turns north. I counted eleven on the telegraph wire on Tuesday and none on Wednesday, and the boy who brings the mules up from Varda says they went south over the high saddle in the dark, like thrown ash. You would have laughed at me, standing on the step with flour on my hands, shouting at the sky as if it could be argued with.

Except one stayed. It is sitting in the lee of the stable door with one wing held a little crooked, and I have not had the heart to shoo it. Papa would say it has a broken pinion and will be dead by the first frost. I leave it crumbs from the morning bread and a dish of water, and it regards me with that flat, unimpressed eye they have, as though I am the one who has been left behind.

Yesterday a surveyor came up asking after the pass road, a tidy man with a brass compass he kept opening and shutting. He asked whether anyone had come over from the Varda side in the last month. I said only the mules. He thanked me, and then at the gate he looked at the bird for rather a long time before he went on.

I have decided it is not broken after all. This morning I opened the stable door and it flew once round the courtyard and settled on the rail beside my hand, light as a folded note, and for a moment I felt I had been sent a reply. I will write again when the road is clear. Keep the lamp lit for me.

Your sister, Ilse