Her eyes are large and bright as she takes in the scraps of bread and cheese. No longer red-rimmed and sunken, no more do my hands strike bone when I search her skin every morning. She begins to look like any village child of her age. Though dirtier. And yet she is not one of them, and now, after our meeting with the farmhand, I see why Mam warns us to keep separate. I see why she says I shall never be a farmer’s wife, nor Annie accepted in the village. I feel the stalking of he that claims us.

Annie picks over the food with ragged black fingers, and gathers a small pile. Elbow on table, chin in hand, legs swinging, she chews her way through, stopping only to yawn and push back the sleep-taffled mess of hair that falls over her face.

I pour her a cup of water and sit opposite. ‘Steady, cub,’ I say. ‘It won’t disappear with the sun and we don’t want it going the way of the buttermilk, do we?’

She throws me a look that tells me she is unimpressed, but her mouth is saved for chewing not speaking. I sit back on my stool, try to enjoy watching her eat her fill. Try to stop wondering what kept Daniel away.

Soars too High

Daniel had rushed through his tasks, impatient to be done. After days away from Sarah, a means for them to be together had at last come to him, and he could not wait to put his plan to action.

As he ducked down now behind the hedge that lined the path out of the farm, he felt the sun warm on the back of his neck, the air sickly with the scent of pollen. He waited until he saw them. Bett usually left alone, but this evening was huddled speaking with Gabriel. Daniel shuffled as close as he could without being seen.

‘… want with me?’ Gabriel asked. ‘I have more tasks before I may be off and eat, and I’m gut-foundered already.’

Bett was turned away from Daniel and he could not make out all she spoke. He peered through the leaves and dog roses.

‘… of a brawl in the tavern,’ she said.

‘Well Nathaniel was mistook, it was another, for I was not even—’

‘I know,’ Bett’s voice rose a little. ‘… Wright was called and now they’re to be put in the stocks …’ Through a gap in the bottom of the hedge Daniel watched a worm writhe on the dusty path, distracted by its discomfort. ‘… wanted to warn you is all, you must watch yourself and that temper now, the new magistrate is not the same as the old. There’ll be no turning away.’

Daniel shifted quietly. He squinted to see Gabriel’s frown become a smirk. ‘I never knew you were so fond of me.’