I ease her to her feet. She barely weighs more than Annie. I place a blanket around her shoulders and guide her. Our route veiled by night. One step. Another. Another. Annie takes her hand, walks with us.

Ours will be a slow journey.

Daniel waits on the riverbank. Annie has grown tired and I carry her, supporting Mam with my free arm. He runs, takes Annie from me.

‘Here,’ he says. Leads the way, and we follow.

On the path, tucked beneath an oak, stands Bonny, shackled to the Taylors’ cart. Daniel lifts Annie and helps me to guide Mam in. She looks at him as she steps up.

‘She was a good woman, your mother,’ she says. ‘The sweetest ever I knew. She gave you her spirit.’

Daniel swallows. ‘Thank you.’

Annie curls under the blanket, thumb in mouth and head on Mam’s knee, closes her eyes. Mam strokes her hair. ‘There, there,’ Mam whispers. ‘Sweet babby.’

‘Food,’ Daniel says, indicating three cloth parcels. ‘And the last of my mother’s clothes.’

Peeking from the knot of one of the bundles is my bracelet, gleaming in the moonlight. The comb I clutch in my hand. I look at him. Tears stand in his eyes.

‘You remember the name of the family the parson was sending us to?’ he asks.

I nod.

‘You remember the name of the village? The way?’

‘Aye. But they’re expecting a farmer’s wife.’

He opens his palm, and there sits his mother’s ring. Takes my hand, places it on my finger. ‘Farmer’s widow,’ he says, voice shaking. He takes a shuddering breath, tips his face to the sky. A tear falls down each cheek. ‘I would give anything to join you, but I cannot. There will be blood on my hands if I do. Molly is—’

‘The brew didn’t work.’

‘I promised myself as husband to keep her from finishing her life. I’m sorry. I thought that—’

I taste my own tears. Look down at the ring. The gentle warmth that his presence brings will be lost forever, leaving me to face an unknown path alone.

Cold, the darkness that stirs in me now. He is to be Molly’s husband, and I a widow. The flare of the dog’s eyes is a white flame, the growl shuddering through me spiked with frost. I cannot see his face beyond the shadows of my fury.

I could let this creature take me over. One last time. Could wish upon him all the pain I feel at this moment, equal in depth to the joy we shared.

Mam’s voice is dry and brittle, barely breaking through to me. ‘They will always find a way to leave,’ she says. ‘I told you he takes them. The men we love.’