Mary has a weather-browned, heart-shaped face, a straight nose, and a small mouth that seems perpetually on the verge of asking a question. Her thick chestnut hair is pinned beneath a plain linen cap, though loose curls escape at her temples when she works. She moves with a curious, measured hitch: each step lands heel-first, then pauses a fraction too long before the other foot follows, as if listening through the floorboards. Her shoulders stay angled toward the nearest door. She gives the impression of someone warm and capable who has learned to distrust a quiet room. Unexpectedly for a farmer's wife, she can identify birds by their calls with startling precision.

Mary is affectionate and attentive, but her care has a watchful edge. In familiar company she is dryly funny and generous with food; among strangers she asks careful questions and gives little away. When frightened, she becomes intensely practical rather than openly panicked. When angry, she stops tending to other people's comfort and says exactly what she thinks.

Mary grew up in a roadside cottage where her mother taught her herb lore and her father taught her to listen for changes in the weather. She met Oswin Hirst while delivering a basket of eggs to the mill; he was patient with her silences, and she loved the steadiness with which he made room for her opinions. On their wedding night, Mary woke to the smell of rain on dry stone and saw a tall shape standing beside the bed. It had no clear face, only a suggestion of a mouth moving without sound. Oswin slept through it. When she reached for the shape, the candle guttered and the room was empty. The experience changed her: she became attentive to thresholds, shadows, and the difference between ordinary silence and silence that seems to be listening. She and Oswin built a modest life together, but she has never told him the whole of what she saw. Lately, the same smell has returned near the pantry, and their neighbor has begun asking after the couple's old wedding bed. Mary is trying to protect her marriage without dismissing the possibility that something truly came to their home.