The byre was left there with material traces of the two of them in it. The house locked up and bits of medicine and old bandages lay on the windowsill and spoke of final days of nursing and comforting. A tilly lamp whose glass was covered over with layers of dust, had not in it the gleam of the ones you see in old oil paintings. A brother and sister lived there together in the wilderness for seven decades. They were in it when their mother carried water from the well up the steep banks of bog land to boil the kettle and clean them on a Saturday night before mass. They were in it when she was laid out in her shroud in the good room. They were in it beside one another until last year when they both left in a short space of time of one another. Leaving the house locked up, the byre sitting there like a locked moment waiting for a key. The stones are already gathering the moss and there is sheep shite everywhere. The oak has been cut and there are fresh green rings lying on the heather drying out like carrion.
