A dried flower hung above the door of The Last Hearth.

Its pale, pointed bracts resembled a tiny sun.

CAELWYN: “An unusual decoration.”

STACY: “It’s an eguzkilore.”

“A what?”

“A sun flower. In parts of the Basque Country, people hang these thistles above their doors for protection.”

CAELWYN: “Against what?”

An elderly woman answered from the doorway.

MAIALEN: “Those who believe the night belongs to them.”

Inside the inn, Maialen told them about Gaueko.

In Basque folklore, Gaueko is associated with the night itself. Stories warn of people who challenge the darkness, venture onto lonely roads and never return.

The day belongs to those of the day. The night belongs to those of the night.

CAELWYN: “A remarkably possessive arrangement.”

MAIALEN: “The mountains are dangerous after sunset.”

STACY: “That doesn’t necessarily mean the danger is supernatural.”

“No,” Maialen replied. “But it doesn’t make the missing people any less missing.”

Then someone began hammering on the door.

A young man staggered inside.

TOMÉ: “Catalina hasn’t come back! She’s gone missing near the old bridge!”

Catalina was the village midwife. She had been travelling to a farmhouse where a woman was about to give birth.

Maialen’s daughter, Leire, immediately collected her medical satchel.

MAIALEN: “You’re not going out there!”

LEIRE: “Catalina could be hurt. And there’s a mother waiting for her.”

MAIALEN: “You know what they say about the night.”

STACY: “Then we respect it. We take lamps, ropes, warm clothes and someone who knows the road.”

They set out together.

The mountain path was dark and slippery.

Then Caelwyn heard a bell.

A low metallic sound echoed through the ravine.

And something stood in their path.

A huge black cow.

Motionless.

Watching.

CAELWYN: “I don’t suppose that’s the innkeeper’s?”

Nobody answered.

A sudden gust swept across the path.

Within it, Leire thought she heard words.

The night belongs to those of the night.

The cow stepped aside and disappeared into the darkness.

Pello, the village watchman, raised his lantern.

Beyond where the animal had stood, the road had collapsed into the ravine.

One more step might have sent them over the edge.

LEIRE: “Did it know?”

STACY: “I don’t know. But it stopped us.”

They found Catalina sheltering beneath the damaged road, injured and cold but alive.

While Stacy and Pello helped her back, Caelwyn accompanied Leire along a safer path to the farmhouse.

The child was born before dawn.

A healthy little girl, furious at the world and determined to announce her arrival.

When Leire returned to the inn, her mother embraced her beneath the dried eguzkilore.

MAIALEN: “You went out after dark.”

LEIRE: “I did.”

“And you came home.”

“Yes.”

Maialen looked at the little sun above the doorway.

“Perhaps I misunderstood my mother’s warning.”

Later, Stacy and Caelwyn watched the winter shadows return.

CAELWYN: “Was that Gaueko on the mountain?”

STACY: “Perhaps it was only a cow.”

“And the voice?”

“The wind, perhaps.”

“And the collapsed road?”

“Very real.”

He considered that.

CAELWYN: “So we still don’t know who owns the night.”

Stacy smiled.

“No. But we know what to do when someone needs help in it.”

Outside, something moved beyond the last house.

Large.

Dark.

Almost like an animal.

Then it vanished.

Above the inn door, the eguzkilore trembled in the cold wind.

Stacy and Caelwyn went inside.

They closed the door against the winter.

But they left it unlocked.

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