‘You,’ he shouts again. ‘You did this, with your witchery and curses, and now you dare step foot on this land?’

He barges past the boy, knocking him so that he staggers, stops in front of me. Jaw working, chest heaving.

‘Make it stop.’ He is a desperate sight, scowling and missing patches of hair where he’s scratched his scalp raw. I fight laughter. ‘Uncurse me,’ he says.

At this both Mam and the lad turn to stare. He steps away, eyes fearful again.

‘Nay,’ I say, speaking only to him. ‘I didn’t—’

I ignore Mam’s sharp glance, look past the farmhand to the lad. I must show him my innocence.

‘This isn’t – I’m only learning to heal.’

He remains silent and gives me no sense that he understands. The farmhand roars accusations, Mam speaks soothing words, but I care nothing about either.

‘Accept this,’ Mam says, taking the bowl from me and bending to place it at the farmhand’s feet. ‘It will ease your suffering. Please, we’re healers. No more. No cost to you, sir.’

She reaches for my hand and pulls me away. I do not want to go. The understanding that my powers run true, that my curse upon the farmhand came to be, jolts through me. It is too much. What injury might I cause next time I anger? What peril might I bring upon my family? All this I feel and yet, more than it all, I think of the lad. That moment of fleeting warmth, vanishing so quickly. For now, I do not want to be me. I wish to be the girl who watched him tame the mare, and nothing more. He stands stricken, as though it were he I cursed.

We’re halfway up the hill before Mam speaks. ‘What have you done?’ She stands with hands on hips, breath coming fast. ‘You must tell me all of these mares and curses. Haven’t I warned you to keep away? We don’t go a-meddling in their lives and they leave us be, that’s how it must stay.’

‘He hit me and I was angry. It was supposed to be sores.’

‘’Tis the friendly talk of mares that I fear more than the curse.’

‘I didn’t think I had the power.’