Embertide

Something lives in the water beneath Aylesbury. It has been there since before the town was a town, since before St. Mary's Church was raised above it, since before we had words for the kind of patience stone-cold water has in the dark. It does not require worship. It does not want prayer. It wants acknowledgement. And every seven years, during the Michaelmas ember days, a keeper from one of the Old Town's thirteen families brings it what it is owed.

Sarah Wickham arrives in Aylesbury exhaus...