My stomach strains and a clear foot outline passes under my skin.

– Women prepare the body?

– Aye. Twin fates. Life and death. Women’s work. We bring life into the world and we take it back out again. One woman brings the dead rags, we wind them around the body after cleansing – every area, knotted rag up his arse, so he doesn’t leak! If the dead person is liked, they get sung over tae the other side.

– Did they sing for your father?

– No, he’s lucky they weren’t swearing at him and sticking needles in his fucking eyes!

There is a thud from the consulting room.

– He’s passed out!

I want to take down my carefully wound pompadour. Show my horns. I have two heartbeats inside me. Four eyes to see. One set for this realm and the other for the underworld.

– Then you bury them? she asks.

– No, then we perform Kistan. We lift the body – as one – into the casket. During the waken we take turns to watch over it so the devil can’t take their soul. In my da’s case that was only really carried out fir the facade of tradition.

– You think the devil didnae want his soul?

I smile at her, bitterly.

– Three days later the women do first lift. Take the casket on our shoulders and carry the body out feet first so the soul can’t come back in. Then the men take him. They’re drunk by then. They’ve been drinking fir three days. Sometimes they get in a fight on the way to the kirk. Sometimes they lose the body and can’t remember where they left it. They dropped my da’s body over a clifftop. Left him looking out across the North Sea. I’m pretty sure they were just trying to make sure he was irreparably dead. We all were, really.

– Your stomach is hard as rock, Jessie. The skin has stretched. Do you think it’s coming?

– Soon.

She takes a long drink and stares at me.

– What are you thinking about?

– The taste of flesh in my mouth.

– What else?

– How my horns grew the minute my father died.

– What else?

– There was still soot in the grate.

– And?

– I was glad he was dead.

– How did you know the men dropped him down the cliff?

– I went to find him.

– Why?

– So I’d know he wouldn’t cause chaos any more.

– That’s what he did?

– Aye.

A hard kick to my stomach and I bend over in pain and sweat pours off me. The contractions are like having my insides torn apart by a thousand rats at once. I don’t know how anyone lives through this.

– Help me stand!

Elise pulls me to my feet and water sloshes onto the floor.

– Let me get towels!

– I can taste blood.

– We’ll get through this!

– What if the baby has no face, Elise?

– Stop it.