‘A man of any sort needs comfort, Seth,’ Mam says.

The door closes and I am in the murk, feeling for the table to lay the radishes on, taking a few steps with a hand along the wall until my foot knocks against the pile of findings Annie keeps by our mat: stones, and her favourite shell from the beach, flat and smooth. The pieces she has brought from the deserted dwellings that surround us: parts of bowls, usually, broken into jagged, muddy shards. I crawl in next to her, refusing to let myself think of what they once contained, of the hands that held them.

There are few who come to our door and Seth is the sweetest of them all, always bringing a gift of some kind, and if he is cheerful, swinging Annie round by the arms until she laughs and hiccups. Though if we see him in the village we are to treat him as a stranger, for they know him by a different name there.

I am especially glad of his arrival tonight; the company and coin he brings will lead Mam away from sorrow. He was not a perfect man, my father, and even now she knows it as well as I, telling stories of his drinking and flirting with a light in her eyes. She forgives him every time. She forgives him everything, except dying.

The lamb allows us to live as others do, as Mam, John and I once did, for two days. By the third morning we’re left with only broth, and Annie has licked the bones clean. As I finish searching her for marks, Mam turns to me.

‘We must go to the village.’ She catches Annie as she tries to run to the woods. ‘And you, lass. There’s work to be done. Come, Dew-Springer.’

Mam takes her familiar on every trip to the village or the cottages that line the seashore, for protection. She has often warned us of the need to guard our knowledge from outsiders. We must always keep a gulf between their lives and ours. I wonder what form my familiar will take, when the time comes, and whether it will bring a feeling of safety.

We walk with Mam as far as the edge of the village, the path still marked by the lamb’s blood, though we don’t speak of it. Next time I fetch water I shall try to wash it away, for we can’t afford to provoke anger. Most endure us without much complaint, for they make use of Mam’s herb-knowledge when they need, though there will always be some that suspect us of more. Of worse. And it is true that Mam, if angered, is not beyond calling upon dark forces to bring about suffering. Matt Taylor is one that does not look kindly on us, and would take little convincing of our guilt.