There was a place up on the braes where we would go as children: the remains of an old sheddie. Oftentimes we put our tins of bait in there, our spare grapplie hooks, while we clambered about, digging up lugworms. But it was also a place to hide, sheltered from the sight of anyone with opinions on what a child should be doing every minute of the day. Kitta, Elspet, Liza and I would sit there a wee while with our knitting, talking, laughing about this thing and that—never for long, mind, for we had work to do, were expected back with our pails of bait. But it was a place to breathe, a brief freedom snatched from duty.

I can see us there that New Year day:

The wind is roaring through my hair, the cold biting through my gansey, as Kitta pulls me across the braes and bundles me into the shelter of the three-sided sheddie. We have the place to ourselves, no-one else is out in wind like this, not when it is the morning after Hogmanay. I flop onto a pile of hessian, shivering, and tuck the folds of my skirt under my knees, Crusoe leaning in to my side. But the cold is forgotten in an instant when a blast of wind rattles the walls of the sheddie and whips at Kitta’s clothes. Her skirt billows and collapses like something demented. An unexpected rustling sound. There’s something under Kitta’s skirt. I yank up the hem to see.

Gasp.

Before I can reach out and touch the stiff, lacy thing she is wearing, Kitta has pulled my hand away and gives me a Look she’s learned from Ma. My brows rise in awe, but I am worried too, aye.

Kitta peeks out either side of the sheddie, although it’s clear there’s no-one here but the two of us. Then she looks at me, really looks, for the first time since she walked in the door the day before. Kitta! Oh, I’ve missed her. My sister, at last, is home.

Da-dah! She whips a package from underneath her gansey and offers it to me with a swirly flourish—a gift wrapped in pale wax paper and tied with sisal.

Well, go on, she says, pushing it into my hands and dropping, all a-rustle, to hug her knees.

I trail my fingers along the smooth paper, admiring the sheen on it. Like something you imagine rich people might give, something bought from a shop.

Come on, Ginger Meggie, Kitta urges, and she pulls at a corner, tearing the paper a little.