The land was sodden; even during the short breaks in the rain, drips cascaded from the trees, driven down by the briefest of breezes. The sky was bruised black and blue. On this deep set All Hallows Eve in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and twenty-seven Miss Abigail Prince hurried through the woods, lifting her skirts to avoid the worst of the mud, she’d finished her work in the big house late again and her mother would be worried. The children would be painting their cherubic faces with ashes taken cold from yesterday’s fire. The vicar disapproved — ways of the devil he called them from the pulpit — but as her mother so haughtily put it: was there anything the common people did — except work — which the rolly-polly vicar did approve of? ‘There were an All Hallows before there ever were the cross of the Jews’ her father spat out, as he stuck near the fire of a wet Sunday eve.

Walking home, Abigail heard the rumble of thunder just before she saw the lightning streak across the blackest of skies. Her mother, and the wee ones, would be hiding from the storm in the cubby hole beneath the stairs. Abigail began to trot, still gripping her skirts tightly with her left hand. Some old ‘uns in the village whispered that her left handedness was another sign of the divil’s work. Abigail didn’t listen, Abigail didn’t care; she just wanted to be home safe and sound.

Just as she turned off the forest track onto the lane that would take her to her village, she was thrown off her feet in an explosion of light. She took a few seconds to realize that she was still breathing but her head was hot, so hot. Was that singeing she smelt? She didn’t know, so she hurried to get to her feet and continue her journey. Abigail could feel herself shaking, she thought: no point hanging on to her skirts now, she knew she’d be soaked in mud.

The final few hundred yards were covered in a flash, Abigail threw herself against her family’s cottage door and into her mother’s arms. Her mother was, as usual, all practicality and patience, she removed Abigail’s outer garments whilst heating water over the fire. When Abi was clean and ship-shape again her mother brought the family mirror to her first daughter: “look ‘ee my love, look at thy beautiful hair.” Abi looked and looked but couldn’t believe her eyes, the left side, her left side, of her hair was now shocking white and remained so for all of her future life. She was my beautiful grandmother. 

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