About this story
A dark-cloaked widow named Lydia Lensky, the vicarage's new housekeeper, passes the farm with her small daughter Anna, and church, then a borrowed pat of butter, bring the two of you face to face. She leaves asking a question you cannot honestly answer — how her daughter's lost button found its way home in your gift.
How it opens
Marsh Farm stood where rich fields folded around Cossethay and the river Erewash.
TillyThe Brangwen men look toward weather; their women look beyond the church spire.
You had inherited the men's land and the women's restlessness without naming either.
Effie BrangwenTom, the world has crossed our land without asking whether we follow.
Choose
The farm changes even when its name does not.
Someone must keep the Marsh itself alive.
I have no gift for the world beyond Cossethay.