The woman watched us approach without putting down her spade.
She was perhaps in her thirties, though there was something about her face that made age difficult to guess. Her red scarf was tied loosely around her neck, and a few strands of dark hair had escaped from beneath it.
The garden was small, but it seemed to extend further than the clearing in which we had first seen it. A narrow path wound between beds of herbs and flowers, disappearing behind a hazel tree and reappearing beside a little wooden shelter.
The woman rested her hands on the spade.
“You've brought visitors,” she said to Ada.
“I have.”
“More than you usually do.”
“We've had a busy morning.”
The woman smiled.
Then she looked at the innkeeper.
“You've grown older.”
He returned her smile, though uncertainty remained in his eyes.
“So have you, apparently.”
“Not in the same way.”
She leaned the spade against the low wall.
“Come in. The bridge is safe, provided you don't all try to cross at once.”
Rowan glanced back at it.
“I inspected it.”
“Then I expect it will be safe.”
He seemed unsure whether she was teasing him.
We crossed into the garden.
There was a small table beneath the hazel tree, with two wooden chairs and a blue bowl filled with water. A few white flowers floated on its surface. The woman invited us to sit while she finished her work.
“What are you planting?” Nell asked.
“Nothing today.”
“But you're digging.”
“I'm making room.”
“For what?”
The woman looked at the bed in front of her.
“That's what I'm waiting to find out.”
She returned to her spade.
The innkeeper stood beside the table, watching her.
“Did you know me?” he asked.
She did not turn.
“I knew you when you were younger.”
“Will said I used to bring him bread.”
“You did.”
“And you came with me?”
“Sometimes.”
“Were you the girl with the red scarf?”
She straightened.
“I was.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
“Were you called Mara?”
The woman laughed softly.
“Sometimes.”
Ada placed her basket on the table.
“Perhaps we should have tea.”
The woman nodded.
“There's a kettle in the shelter.”
She disappeared behind the hazel tree and returned carrying a small iron kettle and several cups. The shelter was not much larger than a garden shed, but inside it contained a little stove, a shelf of crockery, and a narrow bed.
“Do you live here?” I asked.
The woman poured the tea.
“Not all the time.”
“Where else do you live?”
She considered.
“Wherever there's something to tend.”
The innkeeper sat down.
“Why didn't you come back?”
She looked at him.
“I did.”
“When?”
“Many times.”
He frowned.
“I never saw you.”
“You weren't always looking in the right place.”
There was no reproach in her voice. She spoke as though this were simply how things had happened.
He looked down at his cup.
“I thought I had lost you.”
The woman sat opposite him.
“You lost the path. That's not quite the same thing.”
He looked up.
“Do you remember the house?”
“Of course.”
“The garden?”
“Yes.”
“The pear tree?”
She smiled.
“It still bends towards the wall.”
He laughed.
For a while they talked about small things: the old kitchen window that rattled in the wind, a cat that had once taken up residence in the pantry, the time the roof leaked over the bed and they had moved the bed into the kitchen. Their conversation had the easy rhythm of people who had shared ordinary days, even if neither could quite agree when those days had occurred.
At one point, the woman reached across the table and touched his sleeve.
“You have flowers now,” she said.
He looked at her.
“White ones.”
“I noticed.”
“Do you know where they come from?”
She shook her head.
“Some of them grow in places where they haven't been planted.”
He smiled.
“That sounds familiar.”
She looked towards the garden beds.
“There's one thing I should show you.”
She led us along the narrow path, past the hazel tree and the little shelter, to a low wooden gate at the back of the garden.
Beyond it stood a single pear tree.
Its branches leaned towards a stone wall, just as she had described. Beneath it was a wooden bench, and beside the bench a small stone basin.
The woman knelt and lifted something from the grass.
It was a little brass bell.
The innkeeper recognised it immediately.
“The second bell,” he said.
The woman shook her head.
“No. Not that one.”
She held it out to him.
“This is the bell that was here before the second bell.”
He took it carefully.
It was smaller than the one Samuel had shown us, and its handle was wrapped in blue thread. There was a tiny mark on its side: three interlocking circles.
“Where did you find it?” Mrs Bell asked.
“Under the pear tree.”
“How long has it been there?”
The woman smiled.
“Since before the tree was planted.”
Mrs Bell looked at her sharply, but said nothing.
The innkeeper turned the bell over in his hand.
“Does it ring?”
“Only when someone has arrived.”
He raised it slightly.
“Should I try?”
The woman shook her head.
“Not yet.”
He lowered his hand.
We stood quietly beneath the pear tree. Beyond the wall, the wood stretched away towards the mountains. Somewhere in the distance, water was falling.
Then the woman looked at him.
“You can come back now,” she said.
He looked at the bell.
“Back where?”
She smiled.
“Home, if you like.”
And for the first time, the innkeeper seemed to understand that she was not speaking about the house across the river, or the White Heron, or even the garden.
He was looking at the woman in the red scarf.
“I would like that,” he said.
She took his hand.
The little brass bell remained silent.
But as we walked back towards the bridge, I noticed that the pear tree had begun to blossom.
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