Once upon a time, the rough music had come for the old woman and her cat, oh yes it had, and the people walking to its drumming had dragged her out into the snow and pulled down the rickety cottage and burned her books because they had pictures of stars in them.

And why? Because the Baron’s son had gone missing and Mrs Snapperly had no family and no teeth and, to be honest, cackled a bit as well. And that made her a witch, and the people of the Chalk didn’t trust witches, so she was pulled out into the snow, and while the fire ate up the thatch of the cottage, page after page of stars crackled and crinkled into the night sky while the men stoned the cat to death. And that winter, after she had hammered on doors that remained closed to her, the old woman died in the snow, and because she had to be buried somewhere, there was a shallow grave where the old cottage used to be.

But the old woman had nothing to do with the loss of the Baron’s son, had she? And soon after, Tiffany had gone all the way to a strange fairyland to bring him back, hadn’t she? And nobody talked about the old lady these days, did they? But when they walked past the place in the summer, the flowers filled the air with delight and bees filled it with the colours of honey.

No one talked about it. After all, what would you say? Rare flowers growing on the grave of the old woman and catnip growing where the Aching girl had buried the cat? It was a mystery, and maybe a judgement, although whose judgement it was, on whom, for what and why, was best not thought about, let alone discussed. Nevertheless, wonderful flowers growing over the remains of the possible witch – how could that happen?

Tiffany didn’t ask that question. The seeds had been expensive to buy and she had had to go all the way to Twoshirts to get them, but she had vowed that every summer the brilliance in the wood would remind people that there had been an old lady they had hounded to death and been buried there. She did not quite know why she thought that was important, but she was certain to the centre of her soul that it was.