EPILOGUE

She stood among the eels in the dark, singing quietly to herself. She could see that it was dusk from the way the light on the river beyond the grilles had dimmed, and she could feel that the eels themselves had become sluggish around her feet.

She sat on the walkway and pulled her legs from the water, still singing. She sang on as she heard someone trying the door. It was early for them to be letting her out but she had no fear of them. They never beat her after she had been alone with the eels. They thought it was punishment, and punishment enough.

But the door didn’t open. It wasn’t them. It was someone whose noises she did not recognise. Someone trying to get in. Trying to break the lock.

Someone cold, looking for somewhere to stay the night. Or maybe steal a bushel of eels.

She tried to think who it was, reaching out for them with her thoughts—

And then someone touched her mind back, and she stopped singing.

She felt them listening to her, inside and outside.

Just as she was doing to them.

Hello, she thought, who are you?

She felt them recoil from her mind, a slight feeling like a cobweb being yanked across her brain.

Don’t be scared, she thought. I mean you no harm. There is a key hidden on the lintel above the sluice. Don’t drop it in the river.

There was silence. She cast about for him. He was keeping his thoughts away.

The eels began threshing in a boiling mass at her feet.

Then the door clicked open. And there he was.

A dark stranger with a tinker’s pack on his back.

“Thank you,” she said.

He nodded. His eyes were frightened, but not enough to run; they were interested too.

“Do you talk?” she said.

No.

He looked embarrassed.

I am Mute but Intelligent.

And a tinker, I see.

How can you talk in my head?

How can you listen to my thoughts? she replied.

And out loud she said,

“Do you have mirrors for sale in that pack?”

He held up one finger. Only one.

She hid her disappointment.

“No matter. One will do. If you come with me, back to the poorhouse garden, I have another one, and then I shall show you a trick which will really impress you.”

As he followed her across the water meadow, through the rising mist, she had another thought.

And do you have a knife? A very, very sharp one?

Yes, thought Amos. Why?

We shall see. Are you squeamish?