He turns, running backwards as he faces me, shrugs. ‘You’ve your night amusements,’ he shouts. ‘I’ve mine.’

He runs on, leaving me to wonder. I pull the coif from my head, shake out my hair, trudge back to the house.

Morning comes and Annie, sleepy and tousle-headed, picks over the remains of the food, poking her grimy fingers into the butter and licking it off. Her skin is unmarked, her belly full and so I can sit easy. She swings her legs, plays with the clay figure of the netter, walking it up and down the table, stroking the strands of hair and whispering to it. There is a scrap of cloth on it now, though I don’t care to think how it came to be here. Grotesque. This is the closest she has to a plaything.

‘I miss the real Sarah, when’s she coming back?’ she asks. ‘You smile too much. And you sing, she doesn’t sing.’

‘I’m the same Sarah. They’re just clothes.’ I take the coif from where it lies on the table, pull it on to her head. Too big, it falls almost to her nose. She tilts her chin back and peers at me. ‘See?’ I say. ‘You’re still you with it on.’

Yet the sight of her in it sends a quiver through my blood. In the coif I see how she would look as a village girl. As another Annie. I pull it off her.

Mam returns from wetting down the ash pile, shaking out her petticoat and brushing mud off her feet. So far she hasn’t commented on the clothes, but her gaze slides to the coif as she passes. She stabs at the fire.

‘Where’s John?’ I ask. His mat still empty on the floor.

Mam busies herself adding wood to embers. ‘He’ll be back soon.’

Annie quietly places the clay man down on the table, clambers from her stool and stands as if petrified, eyes on Mam’s back.

‘On an errand for you?’ I ask.

‘Finding diversion. He’s as much right as you.’

No more comfort than John himself gave me. Annie tiptoes to the door, lifting her feet high, holding her wide-spread fingers out in front of her. I cover my mouth to smother laughter.

‘Where dust think you’re going, little lass?’ Mam asks, without even moving from the fire to look at us.

Annie stops, slumps and sighs. Face a picture of tragedy. ‘To the woods,’ she says, voice slack with defeat. ‘There’s a tiny babby fox, it hasn’t growed like the others, it’s too small, I want to feed it.’

Mam turns, hands on hips. ‘Feed it what? We’ve nowt to spare for foxes, however stunted.’

Annie reaches into her sleeve and pulls out a desiccated shrew. We watch it swing from the tail she grips in her grubby fingers, and Mam stifles a smile.