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mother unwrapped the goatskin. ‘I have brought a length of cloth, mistress. It is my best weaving—’
    ‘I am sure it is.’ The hag spoke absently. Nikko expected her to put on the apron of the Mother, as the headman’s wife did when she made the sacrifice at planting time. But instead she just reached out and lifted Thetis’s chin with two stained fingers and stared into her eyes.
    ‘Do you know why she does not speak, wife of Giannis?’
    Nikko’s mother hesitated. ‘When…when she was born…my husband took her to the mountain. It was a bad winter, mistress, and so little food…’ Her voice stumbled into silence. Nikko wondered if she had ever spoken of her daughter’s birth before.
    The hag looked at her sharply. ‘So you gave your daughter to the Mother. Then how is she here? Did a wolf suckle her, or an eagle fly her home?’
    ‘Nikko.’ His mother gestured at him. Her voice was almost too soft to hear. ‘He brought her back.’
    ‘Ah.’ The hag looked directly at Nikko for the first time. ‘So you took back a gift to the Mother. But the Mother kept part of her gift. Your sister’s voice.’
    ‘She wasn’t a gift to the Mother!’ cried Nikko. ‘The wolves would have eaten her! Why should we give a gift to the wolves?’
    ‘Why indeed.’ The hag almost smiled. ‘I think you areright, boy. The Mother does not need babies left to die on the mountain. So perhaps there is no reason why your sister should not speak. You girl, what’s your name? Thetis. Swallow,’ she ordered suddenly.
    Thetis swallowed.
    ‘Now open your mouth. No, over here, where the light is better.’ The hag thrust two fingers onto Thetis’s tongue. ‘Breathe out, then in again. Lift up your tongue. Now poke it out.’ The hag sat back. ‘Shut your mouth now.’
    The hag sat quietly for a moment. The hut was silent. Nikko could hear goats bleating up on the mountain, and pigeons cooing down in the barley fields. A shadow flitted through the gaps in the door as a pair of swallows dived for flies.
    The hag looked at Nikko’s mother. ‘She cried as a baby?’
    His mother nodded. ‘At first. But later…’ she hesitated ‘…it was as though she learned not to cry. I have never known such a silent baby. It was,’ her voice dropped to a whisper, ‘as though sometimes she wasn’t there.’
    ‘And she has said no word at all? No sound?’
    Another nod.
    ‘Your husband—this Giannis—how did he like his daughter coming back from the mountain?’
    Nikko’s mother looked at the ground. She didn’t speak.
    At last Nikko said, ‘He pretends it never happened. He doesn’t talk to Thetis. No one does. He doesn’t even look at her, most times.’
    Or me, he thought.
    The hag turned away and stared into the stuttering sparks of fire. At last she said. ‘I can make her speak, if that is your wish.’
    His mother’s face lit up as though the sun shone on it. ‘Oh, thank you, mistress.’
    The hag held up a hand. The nails were dark and wasted, like snail shells. ‘Do not thank me yet. I said, I can do it if you wish. But if you are wise you will leave things as they are.’
    His mother looked bewildered. ‘But why, mistress?’
    ‘Because it is easier not to see a child who does not speak,’ said the hag simply.
    Nikko’s mother shook her head. ‘People whisper about her, mistress. If she speaks she will be like other children. Maybe…maybe people will forget—’
    ‘Ha. People only forget the things they don’t wish to remember.’ The words were soft as day-old cheese, but they still made him shiver. ‘So be warned, wife of Giannis.’
    Nikko thought of the night he’d carried his sister home. The hag is right, he thought. People are good at not seeing. But his mother was shaking her head.
    ‘If she does not speak she will never have a husband.’
    ‘Ha! A terrible thing, not to have a husband. Believe me, wife of Giannis, some men would rather have a wife who does not speak. But I admit they may not