“He told them I would not be marked as forgotten. He made it sound like such grace. He gave me the chance to escape punishment by publicly disowning you.” She shakes her head as though the idea is nonsense. “They marked me there and then.” Mum looks right into my eyes. “Leora, it was agony. It was fire like I’ve never felt in my life. And now wherever I go, this mark goes too. I haven’t been served at the market since.”

I reach out and hold her hand.

“But your friends? Surely…”

“There is too much to lose. If any of them are seen with me, they will be marked in this way too – he said so. I wouldn’t wish this on any of them; I don’t blame them for not coming.”

Her voice is strong, but her face is so sad. I hate Longsight all the more today. I hate him for letting me believe that my mum would stop loving me and I hate him most of all for doing this to her. He has made her invisible.

A light knock on the back door sets my heart racing, but Mum waves a hand at me and goes to open it. At the door, holding a paper bag in his arms, is the last person I imagined seeing: Seb – Verity’s older brother, a young man with a learning disability who has been in my life since before I can remember. His familiar face is almost too much for me after the past few weeks. I rush over and hurl my arms around him, crushing the bag between us.

“Seb! What are you doing here?”

He grins at me and walks past, placing the bag on the table. He turns back and opens his arms to me so we can hug again, properly.

“What am I doing here? What about you?” he says. He bends to look at me right in the face and ruffles my hair. “You’re trouble, Leora Flint,” he tells me, his face mock-grave, and then he laughs and hugs me all over again.

“I am trouble, you’re right,” I tell him when we finally let each other go. “And it’s really risky for you to be here.”

“Seb’s a grown-up,” Mum says. “He doesn’t need you mithering him. Besides, he and I have had the same conversation a million times. He’s a stubborn bugger, and he’s the reason I’m still alive.”

She tells me it began with Seb bringing the loaves leftover at the end of the day at the bakery where he works.

“They were going to throw them in the bin, so I took them,” he says.

“Then, it turns out that Seb is such a charmer that people give him things wherever he goes.” Mum laughs.