When her name was called, Molly squealed, covering her mouth with her hands and turning triumphant eyes on the friends standing in line beside her. A group of boys, Gabriel at the head of them, rushed to lift her on to the cart. She clasped her hat and kicked her feet so that her white stockings showed. Though she looked right at him, Daniel turned away. Glanced at the cursed hill, beyond the green and path. Could not help himself.

‘You should go and wish her well,’ Bett said. ‘She wants you to.’

‘What do you know of the Haworths?’ he asked.

Bett frowned at the turn of conversation. She shrugged. ‘Cunning folk. Herb-knowledge and the like. The mam, she’s a skill for sure, but I’ve heard stories of the lad that’d chill your blood.’

‘And the girl?’

She shaded her eyes from the sun. Behind her there was laughter and shouting from the crowds around Molly. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Oh – I only …’

She squeezed his arm. ‘Don’t fret of the Haworths today.’

‘But what if – what if I’m not fretting? What if I’m—’ Drawn. He could not speak it.

Bett narrowed her eyes. ‘Trouble that way, lad. They’re to be called on by those in need, and none other. Molly’s took a shine to you, and though I grant it’s hard to find a sillier lass, she’s a pretty one, surely?’

Her words made sense. Yet he could not heed them.

She wagged her finger once, and left to find her husband.

The smack of Gabriel’s hand on his shoulder sent him staggering. ‘Didn’t get your hopes set that the May Queen will choose a whelp like you for courting tomorrow, did you, Danny?’

‘What?’

‘’Tis me she’s her eye on, and it’s long past time some good came my way. No more toiling that’s left unnoticed, no more cursing by filthy whores. A sweet summer of shaking the tree, eh?’ He winked. ‘You know I had hold of her. Felt the warm of her through her clothes.’

Daniel stepped past him, made his way to the path. ‘I have to be somewhere.’

He walked away from the sunny green, where everyone he knew had gathered. From the pretty girl on the cart, from the parade down the street, children throwing flowers ahead of the May Queen as the whole village followed.

From the shadow of the cursed hill, where the remnants of the plague hamlet squatted, ground tainted by the poisoned flesh that rested there, the laments of the spirits that still lingered drifting through the air. Where the girl with the stormy eyes and sharp tongue lived. The girl who saw in him what others did not.