Daniel had witnessed this process. It left him sick and biting through his lip to stop the protests escaping. Broken was the word. Gabriel tied the animal at head and foot, beating until all spirit was gone. Every time Daniel saw it he swore he would not stand by and watch again.

‘Nathaniel says you’ve not found that lamb and I was thinking today that it must’ve been stole, else we’d have it by now,’ Gabriel said.

Daniel stopped. Father grunted.

‘And I was thinking on the way to church, sure as anything it was that family that lives in the plague village that’s took it.’ He scratched the side of his head, frantically, so that his cap slid back and forth. Daniel’s grip on the mare tightened, and she gave him a baleful look. ‘It’ll be that little whore that lives up the hill.’

Father frowned. ‘They’re a bunch of black-hearts, for sure. But I doubt it’d be the lass, more likely the son if any.’

The boy’s face rose in Daniel’s mind: the sneer, the threat. The blood.

Gabriel scratched harder. ‘We should gather some men, go and find what they’s at. Tonight. I’ll find her, the—’

‘What, that little lass?’ Father asked.

Gabriel snatched his hand from his head, flushed. ‘No. Just – they all, I meant.’

‘When I find the culprit I’ll choose the punishment,’ Father said.

‘Lamb drowned,’ Daniel said. Without forethought and surprising even himself. ‘Saw it in the stream.’ He was in too much turmoil over the Haworths to fear uttering this deception. Worse hid in the shadows than his father’s temper.

Father blew out an irritated sigh. ‘That falls on you, Gabriel. You need to check and block the hedges better. I’ll dock your wage.’

Daniel left the sound of Gabriel’s protests, the mare following him now with a trust in her eyes that reminded him for a moment of the Haworth girl, the open expression she carried as she stepped forward.

She appeared harmless as any animal on the farm. Beaten, afraid and ready to run, her fear all that made her a danger. An enchantment. No more.

Those That Know Me

The hill is slippery with mud and sodden grass. A shot of pain as my foot lands on a stone. I cry out and stagger, losing balance and falling to the ground.

I lie, thinking of the look on the boy’s face, of all Mam’s warnings that we must remain separate from the village. The knowledge we carry, passed on from her grandmother and guarded by each chosen member of the family, must remain ours alone. And here am I, speaking with him as though we are the same kind. Happen he tricked me, just as he lulled the horse, into trusting him. His show of fear a deceit, and he had known me all along.