That was the day she showed me my mark, told me what it meant. No men came after that.

When all is quiet I creep from bed and out to the moonlit night. Fury and fear burn through me as I dig down again and again, the snarling strengthening my bones, driving me on. I’ve been grateful today to have this creature conjured from the blackest parts of me, giving me strength, doing my bidding. It is tamed now, tethered to my will. On and on I work. The pain in my exhausted arms and broken skin on my hands cannot stop me.

His is a shallow resting place, unmarked and less than he deserves, but he sleeps in it as sunlight breaks across the sky.

I lay myself down over his blanket of earth, nourish it with my tears.

Darkening

Milk threatened to slop out as Daniel walked, bucket pulling on his arm. Gabriel, on his way to the house, whistled and chuckled as he passed.

‘Back in your rightful place, Danny. No little witch-whore shall take the women’s work from you.’

Words like a pitchfork to the chest. Daniel walked on. In the two days since Parson Walsh was killed, Gabriel’s mood had soared. He laughed, told jokes and stories of women that Daniel hoped were not true, slapped him on the back. There was an edge to his good humour, a constant flicker to the eye and twitch of the hand.

No one had spoken of the parson. Or Sarah. Until now. It was as though she were dead, and all he had felt gone with her. The love they shared, the life they dreamed, all a figment she had conjured and planted in him.

When she tried in vain to protect her brother and then unleashed her fury upon the villagers, everyone knew that their dairymaid had been none other than the Haworth girl. Including Father. Daniel had expected to find himself banished for bringing her under their roof, but there had been no mention of her. It was well, though, that Sarah stayed away. Gabriel’s blood still burned for revenge, and Father’s pity would not extend to the cunning woman’s daughter. And Daniel feared what punishment she would call down upon those that murdered her brother.

Each night he dreamed of the storm in her eyes.

There was a held-breath silence in the kitchen as he entered. Magistrate Wright walked the edges of the room as Father, Gabriel and Bett sat awkwardly at the table. Father glanced his way. The first time he had met Daniel’s eye in two days, and his pain and shame were clear to see.

‘Yours is an unexpected response to tragic news, and yet one that has greeted me wherever I have shared it,’ the magistrate said. ‘No shock or grief. Hardly surprise, even.’