Miss Butcher 2016 -

Miss Butcher smiled. “I went where I needed to. But some things needed finishing.” Her voice held a tired kindness. “You came.”

The hedgerow ended at a small copse of trees where the town’s boundary blurred into old meadowland. There, sitting on a stump like a queen with no court, was Miss Butcher. She looked smaller than in Elena’s memory, as if the months had unpicked the hems of her bones. Her hands were busy with a length of thread she seemed to be tying into something invisible. miss butcher 2016

“I thought you'd gone,” Elena said, breathless. Miss Butcher smiled