I guide Annie into the shadows of the room we sleep in. As an afterthought I take the clay figure from the table and hide it in the cloth of my petticoat. Annie looks up at me, opens her mouth but I stop her words with my hand.

The knock comes again, louder, faster this time. Mam glances over her shoulder to check we’re out of sight, straightens her hair as best she can and pulls the door open.

I point to the mat but Annie shakes her head, remaining clasped to my waist, huddled by the wall, peering through the doorway. From here I can just see Mam’s back and the tip of a hat and toe of a polished shoe, now sprinkled with dust. A blast of fresh air dashes in from the open door, reaching my face. Annie buries her head into my clothes.

The hat moves as our visitor eyes Mam up and down. I hear the voice, clipped and sharp as though each word is a separate stone laid out without touching the next. Mam tries to close the door and a gloved hand pushes it back, the gleaming shoes step in. He strides around the room, hat tilted as he regards the pocked beams and rotting roof.

Annie tightens her grip on my petticoat, lifts her face to look at me. A pale smudge in the gloom. I point again to the mat and this time she creeps over and climbs in, pulling the covers over her head.

He lifts the coif I left on the table, holding it as he turns to Mam, fingering the edge. ‘Who owns this property?’ he asks.

Mam hesitates for a moment. ‘It’s – unwanted,’ she says.

‘But not unowned.’

‘We’d a dwelling in the village before, my husband was a fisherman, but when he died we moved here.’ There is a tremble in Mam’s voice that makes me want to weep. Or sink my teeth into the no-doubt soft flesh this man hides under his rich clothing.

‘No one objects,’ Mam says. ‘There was plague here, they say it’s cursed, no one wanted—’

‘Cursed?’ He places the coif carefully back on the table, using both hands. ‘By whom?’

‘I – it’s just what they say.’

He walks slowly around the room. Stops to inspect the shoes I’ve left by the wall. ‘And how do you make your living?’

‘I do what I can. People come to me if they’re sick.’

Reaching the doorway to our room, he steps in and looks around. Says nothing when he sees me huddled against the wall, just touches his hat. Turns his back, strides to the door and stops.

‘One of the cunning folk, are you?’ he asks.

Mam does not reply. He casts a look around the room again. ‘I see no evidence of faith here. You attend church?’