In the distance, a little quinie—a wee fisher girl—is running up near the braes, her hands flailing about like stars, long hair whipped from her scalp in knots and skeins. It’s dusk. No-one pays her any mind. Too much to do. Loaded murlins to carry to the boats, the boats to be readied for sea, no time for else but the business of setting sail this night.

Granda Jeemsie and Da are striding in front with coils of lines slung about their shoulders. Ma and Unty Leebie are behind, bent under the weight of floats and ropes and hooks. Then come the boys, laden too, but still green enough to be full of the thrill of Going to Sea.

Suddenly Ma freezes. No. The word catches a moment in her throat. No, NO!

Leather floats tumble from her murlin, skitter across the sand. She swings around. Archie! Jamie! But they have seen for themselves and are already running, though too late to stop it, too late, too late.

The little quinie has danced her way down to the boatie shore, flitting along, chasing after gulls, her fists pounding the air as they escape her. She turns away from the sea.

Ma pants, florid. It could not be worse. The quinie is right in front of the fishers now. She is all Granda Jeemsie’s scandalised face can see.

He stops. And so does Da. And Sailor Wattie. And Buckey’s John and his boys. All of them stopped cold by this reid-heidit child who has put herself between them and the sea.

And then Granda Jeemsie rips the lines from his shoulders. Get from my sight! is what he says, but the words are mangled up in rage. He stomps back to Tiller Street, pushing Ma aside with the meat of his hand, leaving the coils for her to gather and rewind. The rest of them follow, turning the dusk thick with spittle and mutter.

The fleet would not be setting sail that night.

I knew I’d done a terrible thing, and never would I do it again, but just what it was I’d done was a bewilderment that day. I made myself small on the sand, hugging my knees. Kitta will come, I told myself, Kitta will come find me. By the time I heard her calling my name, I was a wretched, whimpering, shivering thing. She dragged me to my feet and hugged me, and I wept into her plaited hair.

Kitta wiped away the snotty strings from my face with a scrunch of her skirt. Ye’re to be quiet now, Meggie mine, she said firmly. Home an’ straight to bed, Ma says. And when I nodded, she put a finger to her lips, took something from her skirt pocket and handed it to me. Turning the folded lump of bread over, I spied a pink sugar scraping inside. A jeely piece! I gasped, looked up. My sister was grinning.