“Mama, can we get a stick like that?”

The visitor bent down and stroked her cheek with a filthy finger. “I’ll cut you one next Easter time.”

“Franklin,” said Weston, and the man juddered upright. I could only stare after him as he shuffled out. The cat, freed from his attention, jumped onto Mary’s lap. My little girl had taken care of the creature since George’s death, for she believed something of her father survived in it. I felt the same, although I knew it to be exactly the sort of superstitious belief for which Catholics are despised.

Two nights later, I was pulled from the deepest sleep by Mary tugging on my hand.

“What is it?”

“The cat is mewling,” she said.

“Does she want to go out?”

“She is walking in circles,” said the little girl through tears. I hauled myself out of bed. The room was cold. “Come lie in my warm patch,” I said, helping Mary climb into the bed. Her body was hot as an iron and my heart sickened to feel it. I left the cover untucked to cool her fever. “Daddy will be cross if we don’t make her better,” Mary insisted. I cringed as I too heard the dreadful noise the animal was making, almost screaming.

I ran downstairs into the kitchen. Moonlight through the windows made a shadow lattice on the cat’s white fur as it paced. Mary was right; she was curling around herself in circles. Sitting briefly, then standing again. The noise was terrible and I shut the kitchen door behind me so that the other children did not wake. The tortured animal began retching and sinking, then dragging itself up again. I bent to pick her up but she hissed. Close to, I could see a brown seepage from her ear.

“Do you have Mary’s sickness?” I murmured. “Is your ear painful? Now it is burst it might feel better?” Unconvinced, I poured a little milk into a bowl, and placed it on the floor near the cat. She began to screech again. The noise was terrible. I felt so helpless that I pressed my hands over my ears as hard as I could. The door opened slowly and all the children stood there, staring in horror. Mary crept in and knelt beside me.

“That is blood, Mother,” she said.

“Sometimes you children have that,” I said, trying to compose myself. “It is very painful but then something bursts and with this brown emission comes relief.”

“But she is still screeching,” said Mary. She reached for the cat but it hissed at her too. With tears streaming down her face, Mary went to sit in the chair by the empty grate. As she did so, a picture came into my mind of Franklin crouching over the cat. Cold bile rushed up my throat and I ran to the back door to be sick.