Rather than frightening the women, the guards trooping towards them, fists and pikes raised, emboldened them. The day Nettie hitched her skirts and showed Angus Stuart her pale skinny arse was one Sorcha wouldn’t forget in a hurry. Flustered, the man had stopped and stared, colour draining from his cheeks before he recalled where he was and ran at them, scattering the laughing women in all directions. When Therese Larnarch flung fish guts at Simon Wood, Sorcha thought she’d wet herself at the sight of the lad blinking through blood and slimy entrails, spitting and coughing even as he tried to bluster. Whenever the guards appeared now, the women would flee, running back to the shore road, cackling and shrieking, hoping Janet could hear both their defiance and their forced joy.

Just below the surface of their bravado was a terror so great that Sorcha feared it could swallow them. Facing it, laughing defiantly at those who aroused it, enabled them to control it. They never admitted as much to each other. It was a dangerous game, but it was all they had. It was all Janet had, too. Sometimes they fancied they could hear the hollow ring of her mirth, the echo of her approval. Sorcha prayed it wasn’t just a fancy. Sometimes she worried that when the door to the cave was finally opened, they’d only find Janet’s bleached bones propped against the far rocky wall, arms limp by her side, her sightless skull yearning towards the opening.

They’d begged leave to see her. Many of the other Weem folk had as well, even those who’d stood with Reverend Cowper on the day Sorcha was released. Whereas once their inclination had been to side with the man, when they saw what had been done to the women with their own eyes, how thin, ashen-cheeked and raddled-eyed they were, how utterly filthy and beaten and pricked, their feelings changed. When the released witches showed no propensity to harm anyone and Peter Morton’s symptoms vanished, any sympathy or apprehension the reverend stirred began to abate.

Even the incomers, who were still drifting into the village to hear the stories and see the witches for themselves, began to dry up.

At first Sorcha was pleased, but then she remembered what Aidan had told them: the incomers had spent a great deal of money in the Weem and in Anster, Silverdyck and beyond. If they ceased to come, this source of funds would cease to flow. He was concerned the reverend and the council would seek another means to lure folk back and make money, even if it meant discovering more witches.

‘But there aren’t any,’ insisted Sorcha for the umpteenth time.