The track leads to a secluded woodland glade. Here still stands the ancient oak, an execution site, as we have seen, but also a place where human life has been created, where lovers have kept avidly awaited trysts. And people have come here for centuries to lie and rest a while, just as you are doing. They too have listened to the wood pigeons’ hrooing, the grasshoppers’ shrill chirping, the brook’s babbling, have watched a tortoiseshell fluttering apparently haphazardly over a carpet of harebells, a ladybird scuttling over a bracken frond, a brilliant electric blue dragonfly darting through the reeds, have inhaled the pungent smell of the wild garlic.

Picking off the sticky goosegrass, you make your way down a bank and find yourself in the village. At the school it is break, and Mrs Raddle and Mrs Ormskirk are keeping a vigilant eye on their children, some of whom are playing hopscotch, others of whom are skipping, and still others of whom are having a game of football. Raising in salutation his right hand, from the grip of which dangles the synthetic chamois with which he is wiping down his beige cabriolet, Mr Davison calls out ‘Good morning!’ to you as you walk by. Mr Wells breaks off mowing his lawn to ask you what your name is, where you’re from and what you’re doing. Others do similarly –Mrs Swift as she prunes a hedge, Mr and Mrs Clark, who stop their car to talk to you because they think you look lost, and Gemma Rowan, whom you meet as she is returning home after visiting Mrs Gray, who is, you learn, suffering from a touch of flu; whether out of friendliness, curiosity, or suspicion (no one who lives in the same village as a witch adept at transmogrifying herself can be blamed for being suspicious of outsiders), everyone wants to make your acquaintance. And when you walk back later that day you may discover people know all about you.

Hang on a minute. What am I saying? That’s not true at all. I’m getting completely carried away. If you lived here several months, then people might know something about you, and you might know something about them. But anyone who thinks there operates here a village grapevine of compulsive gossips who have nothing better to do than spend hours chatting across the garden fence is entirely mistaken. Sorry about that. Better stop now before I give you any more false impressions.