From the internationally bestselling and prize-winning author of Piranesi and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, an enchanting and haunting Christmas short story.

A small hardback edition featuring an afterword by the author

A church is a sort of wood. A wood is a sort of church. They’re the same thing really. Nineteen-year-old Merowdis Scott is an unusual girl.

She can talk to animals and trees – and she is only ever happy when she is walking in the woods. One snowy afternoon, out with her dogs and Apple the pig, Merowdis encounters a blackbird and a fox. As darkness falls, a strange figure enters in their midst – and the path of her life is changed forever.