** The Times instant Top Ten bestseller** **Named a book to look out for in 2024 by the Sunday Times , Guardian and BBC** **A small hardback edition featuring an afterword by the author** From the internationally bestselling and prize-winning author of Piranesi and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell , an enchanting and haunting Christmas short story _________________________________ '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. 'Like Hilary Mantel, Clarke has made the very notion of genre seem quaint' Guardian 'A miraculous and luminous feat of storytelling' Madeline Miller **With exquisite illustrations by Victoria Sawdon**.