Kitta throws back her head and laughs, and the halo from a street lantern shines up her face. She is a radiant, beautiful stranger, not a fisher girl from Roanhaven. But when I look again, I recall that expression of Kitta’s each time she came home—something secret in it, something bubbling under the surface. It had been a mystery to me then.

Kitta laughs again, her face close to the man’s. One thing is certain: for now, she has forgotten me.

~

It was past the tide of Saturday when we set out to walk home in the moonlight. No-one was talking much. Isobel and I were either side of Jeannie, to take her weight if she slumped again. She didn’t look so happy now, and was sick twice before we were a half a mile down the Gremista road. Bella Strahan was unsteady, too, but no docile lamb like Jeannie. She flailed at Kitta for trying to take her arm, and jabbed a nasty finger in my face for good measure: An’ ye can get that prissy frown from your face, Miss High an’ Mighty Tighty. Oh, for a mirror. I’d like to have seen what it looked like, this prissy face of mine. Kitta shrugged and rolled her eyes but kept a step by Bella, ready in case she stumbled. Kitta was always kind like that.

At last we reached our hoosies, ready to drop into bed with our boots still on. No point in taking off clothes that would have to be put on again in a few hours for kirk. Seldom had I been up so late, but how could sleep be possible this night? I lay open-eyed. My back aching. So many new things, troubling things, whirring around in my head. I looked across to the other bed. Even from here, the reek of old ale and vomit was overpowering. Poor Izzy, poor Mary, who couldn’t help but breathe it in all the night.

I pinched Kitta’s arm. I had things to ask her.

A crash against the door. Everyone woke, everyone flew to their feet, clutching at each other in the dark. Someone was roaring a song, with a bash to the door on every second beat:

Ay ay ay, ma quinies

ma bonnie bonnie quinies

Let’s be having yer afore the banns are sung

Ye’re a peely-wally lily

till ye’ve had ol’ Johnny’s wullie

An’ ye dinna wanna die a-won-der-in’ …

Jeannie giggled.

Hush your mouth, Clementina whispered fiercely in the dark, but all of us heard the crack in her words.

Fear.

Nothing funny about the threat in each thump on the hoosie door. We were shivering. Flinching with every blow. The chanty ran its course and I was thinking perhaps the singer was done. But as I tiptoed to the small square of glass that was our window, he started up again:

Ay ay ay, ma quinies …