‘I thought you didn’t believe that?’

She batted him away as she tackled the floor by the door, shrugging. ‘I – who knows that she didn’t curse him, even with no more than cow pox? If I had the skill, I’d do it myself. Besides, he believes it and so does your father. You’ll be lucky if either of you ends the year under his roof. You’ve peddled a dream you cannot deliver, and having dreamed it she’ll be worse off without it. Poor lass. You’d have better left well alone.’

‘I could not,’ he said. His voice quieter than he intended. ‘I could not leave her alone.’

She sighed, scratched under her coif, shook her head. ‘Then you’re a bigger fool than any of us knew.’

Daniel worked with a fury, labouring until his limbs burned, until his breath scratched in his chest and a mallet of pain struck his skull. Fool, he may be. Bewitched, even. But he would not give up.

Father was expecting a milkmaid. Sarah had a natural skill. He would teach her the rest.

He allowed no other thoughts to contaminate his belief that this would come about.

Quiver Through my Blood

The whistle is loud and sharp. Unnerving, slicing through the night air. The type of which I’ve heard before from village boys, sometimes men, meant to show a woman she will not escape unnoticed.

A figure walks above me, down the hill, a solid shadow against the starry sky. I cannot see the face but no matter, I know from the way he walks, swing of shoulder and sway of step, that it’s John. Fear turns to irritation.

‘Look at this,’ he says as he nears. ‘What’re you dressed as?’

I lift my chin. ‘I’ve new clothes.’

I am not the only one. He wears a tunic I don’t recognise, too large, hanging to his knees and with a piece ripped off at the bottom. A donation from Seth, perhaps. I hope.

‘I’ll not ask what you did to earn them,’ he says.

‘I’m to have work. I’ll pay for them.’

He laughs. ‘There’s no one in this village will send work our way. No matter how your flitter-mouse dresses you up.’ He moves to walk off but I catch his arm and turn him. His expression so angry it stops my breath. ‘What?’ he asks.

‘Things will be better, John. There’ll be work for us. For you.’

He shakes himself free. ‘Aye, and we’ll wake every morning to find bread growing from an enchanted tree in the garden, and pretty village girls’ll stand in line to court me.’ He catches my eye, yearning and pain there. Looks down at the ground he scuffs with his foot. ‘Well. Until then.’ He waves and runs off down the hill.

‘Where are you going?’ I call.