The creature slipped back into the water with barely a ripple, vanishing into the shadows. We stood there for a long time, the silence of the canal holding us together. It felt like a blessing—a small, wild sign that even in the post-industrial grey of the valleys, there was still magic hidden in the corners.

By the time we reached the Tredegar grounds in Risca, the light was beginning to turn a syrupy, late-afternoon gold. The playground was nearly empty, the metal of the swings creaking in the breeze.

"I've got her," Peter said, gesturing to the climbing frame. "Go on, have a walk."

I watched them for a moment—the "Old Man" and the seventeen-year-old boy, both of them focused entirely on the two-year-old girl as she navigated the slide. There was something healing about the sight. Two men, usually so guarded in their own ways, finding a common language in the safety of a toddler's play.

Mama and I walked the perimeter of the grounds, the grass damp under our boots. We talked about the Wiccan faith, about the "old ways" of the valley that I'd mentioned in the shop, and how they tied into the rhythm of birth and change.

"My parents... they think it's all chaos," she said, her voice dropping. "The pregnancy, the move, my head. They think I'm a storm that needs to be contained."

I stopped and turned to her. "A storm isn't a bad thing. It clears the air. It brings the rain. And look around you—these hills have survived a thousand storms. They're still standing. And you will be too."

She was quiet for a moment, looking out at the trees. "Maybe I'm not the storm," she said softly. "Maybe I'm just the valley that the storm passes through. And the valley remembers. It holds the water after the rain stops. That's what I want to be for her—the place that remembers and holds."

We walked back to the playground, we saw the three of them. Eira was sitting on the grass, Papa and Peter on either side of her, all three of them intently studying a beetle that was making its way across a leaf. They looked like a family. Not the kind you see on a Christmas card, perhaps, but the kind that matters. The kind that shows up.

We ended the day at the bus stop, the sky turning a bruised purple. As Mama and Papa climbed onto the bus back to Crosskeys, Eira waved frantically until the taillights disappeared.

"Good kids," I murmured to Peter as we started the walk back to Ty Sign.

"The best," he replied.