Daniel stands up, looks at me quickly. There is a darkness coming over me, creeping from the very edges of my vision and laying its great, cold weight upon me. I wonder if this is how Father felt when he drowned.

‘Here,’ he says, holding out the neckerchief. ‘You fold it like this, see?’ He shows me and places it over my shoulders, pulling it tight at the front. I am aware, just, of the warmth of it against me, but too weighed by other thoughts to protest.

‘But I want to stay here,’ Annie says.

The memories grow stronger and I do not want to think about what they mean. Footprint of blood. Cries like a trail in the night. I wish Annie had not told the story. ‘We’ve to go,’ I say again.

Annie scowls. ‘I don’t want to. And you sound funny.’

In my head I hear Mam, the words she spoke that night as clear as if she stands here now, her voice sharp as the edge of John’s knife.

Daniel watches me. I want to smile, but I cannot. He takes a step back. Holds himself with a deliberate steadiness that masks fear. He’s waiting to see which I am, the lass who gathered wood and ate with him, or the witch with the power to curse. At this moment, I do not know.

‘It’s time for me to go too,’ he says. Annie slumps at the shoulders and turns her big brown eyes to him. ‘But next time I’ll bring you a shell. Go with Sarah now.’

She trudges to me and I take her hand, pull her away. ‘And tell no one of this,’ I hiss. ‘You should not have come. Bad girl.’

I barely hear her wails and sobs at my angry words. All I hear is Mam, those years ago. Get back to sleep, she said.

But I didn’t.

Misery

Daniel had to wait until his free hours on Sunday to act on the decision he had made. He walked quickly, driven by a welcome feeling of strength. There was a storm inside him, Sarah’s storm, that had come crashing through her eyes and somehow into him, changing his very make-up. Showing him that the course of events could be turned as he chose, if only he had courage enough.

He marched down the lane and across to where the blacksmith’s lay, between the green and the shore. His fist on the door was firm. Molly’s mother opened it, a woman with the same soft curls, now grey, escaping her coif and framing a plump, pink face. Her focus only faltered slightly on his grazed face.

‘Master Taylor. How lovely to see you, come in,’ she said, standing aside. This respect she showed was for his position, but not him, he knew.