Winged Egyptian cat with ankh on back

The farm was dying that winter. The milk cheque was short, the ewes were lambing early into sleet, and Ruth had stopped sleeping. Every night Tuesday sat on the byre wall facing the moon, and every night the moon was thinner, as if someone were paring it for supper. Ruth's brother Dan laughed at her for talking to a cat. He stopped laughing on the night the lamb would not come, when Tuesday walked into the lambing pen, stood between the ewe's legs and turned round three times, and the air went green and smelled of cut grass.

Her wings were not wings you could see in daylight. They opened only when the moon was full over the frost, bands of red and purple and green fanning out behind her like the feathers of a bird that had never agreed to be a bird. Ruth saw them once from the kitchen window. She did not go out. She had the sense to know that some help is only lent for one night.

In the spring the crate was still at the bottom of the lane, empty, with its lid nailed back down. Dan says it was the same wood as the byre door. Tuesday sits on the wall now, gold cross swinging, watching the thin moon go over Carrow Hill, and if you ask her anything she only blinks, slow and sure, as if the answer were already paid for.