The lye we’ve soaked the linen in stings my eyes as I wade into the water and dunk the clothes, then beat them against the rocks with the washing-beetle. Satisfying work. Today Bett minds my mood, and does not chat or laugh and splash me as she usually does but instead watches the children playing at the bank with the same expression Annie wears when she sees someone eating cake. Still, I cannot avoid hearing the other women talking about Phyllis, and how they had always known she had badness in her, and no wonder she would come to such an end.

I slam the clothes with extra force, splashing the woman next to me, not one I have seen here before but one who sometimes came to Mam for a salve to soothe the skin. I turn away.

‘Sorry.’

‘No matter.’ She stares at me. ‘You know I – have we met elsewhere?’

I bend to inspect the clothes, heart beating a little faster. ‘No.’

‘Yes I – can’t place, and yet I know you from somewhere, I’m sure.’

Bett steps between us. ‘Ah, she’s that kind of a face, everyone feels she’s a life-friend when in fact they’ve just met.’ She pats my arm, turning me gently towards the bank. ‘Isn’t that so?’

I try to laugh. ‘Yes.’

‘See, there we are. That’s all it is. How’s that son of yours, still a wild one?’

The woman laughs, and I wish I could thank Bett, but she waves me away. ‘You begone,’ she calls. ‘I can wring these myself and I know you’ve that task to be about.’

I walk through the village to see the aftermath of the magistrate’s words for myself. And it is plain. On every step sits a witch jar, in every window a cross fashioned from driftwood or corn. Many a wall bears a newly-hewn pattern. There’s a hush I’ve never known, I can hear each of my shoes hit the ground. No lingering on the street to exchange news, no wandering by the harbour to flirt. Into this quiet falls another set of footsteps, quick and light.

I see a furtive figure, crouched and swift-running from the direction of the netter’s house, glancing side to side. The way he moves, bent and unlike a man, I can see why a fearful mind would think him a demon. Barely there, but I see him. I know him. John.