She does not meet my eye, nor even lift her face to look at me. Tears drip from her chin and leave little splashes on the dusty floor, and if each one were a drop of molten iron on my skin they could not pain me more.

I cannot stay. Mam holds me, cups my face, gives the same smile I gave to Annie. ‘Proud of you, lass.’ Even John pats my shoulder.

I kneel in front of Annie, take her in my arms. ‘Farewell, little cub. I’ll see you again very soon.’

She turns away and I leave, each step another pain to my heart.

I’m halfway down the hill when I hear the call. The wind thins and steals her voice, but I hear my name nonetheless, know it’s her. She flies towards me, so fast that if I were not here to catch her she would run on forever.

She lands against me, thumping the air from my chest, almost knocking us both to the ground. I sink to the grass, holding on to her as though she’ll float away if I let go. Her arms are tight around my neck, fingers taffled into the hair that has fallen loose from my coif, and I tell myself that it is for us both, for us all, that I must leave.

The Darkness that Broods

‘Wickedness,’ Magistrate Wright said. ‘Buried in the very breast of this community, a viper deep in the heart of you.’

Every face turned to him, every breath held. He did not bellow, but the steady authority of his voice, the lance of his gaze entranced them all. A small man, thin-faced and spotless amongst the dust and hay of the barn, the weathered faces and ever-present odour of fish in the crowd before him. Magistrate Thompson, gluttonous in every way, had been replaced by a being different from him in all aspects. There had been rumours of his interests in the flesh, but only when the village caught him with Phyllis were they moved to act. Even now, many preferred the appetites of the old magistrate to the rigour of the new.

Daniel leaned against the wall, present in body but removed in spirit. He lost himself in thoughts of the white skin that ran below Sarah’s shift, to the place where he had dared lay his hand only over her clothes. Of the wildness in her, the parts of her spirit she kept from him that he could never truly know, that both thrilled and disturbed him.

As if in reply to his sinful thoughts, when Daniel at last focused his eyes they fell upon Parson Walsh, standing at the edge of the crowd by the door. Quiet now, in contrast to his gregarious behaviour at the beginning of the evening, the minister’s face was crumpled and he wrung his hands.

Daniel glanced at the magistrate.