What a numptie she was. She’d underestimated not only how long it would take her to get to St Andrew’s, but her strength. She also hadn’t considered how slow it would be travelling on foot this time of year, what with her ankle paining, snow to wade through, the occasional passers-by to hide from and the little bit of foraging she’d managed to do that had done naught but make her stomach cramp.

With the help of the sty walls, which creaked as she leaned against them, she hauled herself upright. Unsteady, she waited until the room stopped spinning, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth.

If she didn’t get moving and soon, she never would again. Aye, well, as tempting as that was, she wasn’t ready to give up. Not yet.

First taking a piss, she searched for something to put snow in. There was nothing but a rusty pail with a great broken seam.

Nae bother, she thought, throwing it against the wall. The noise was loud in the great silence. It was as if the world had gone quiet. There wasn’t a sound. No birdsong, no animals, no voices. That at least was good. If she could just get going again, she’d be in St Andrew’s and sitting in front of her sister’s hearth being coddled with soup, bread and whisky by evening.

With those cheery notions swimming in her head, she set off across country, careful to avoid the farmhouse that appeared at the top of a rise a short time later, staying within the trees and praying that if the people did see her, they’d think she was a gypsy or a stray animal and pay her no heed.

As she trudged along, she wondered what was happening back in the Weem. Would they send a search party out? Or would the reverend think she was too much trouble? Either way, she didn’t care, so long as Cowper didn’t punish those she’d left behind for her sins. Her perceived sins. Anger made her forget her hunger, her weariness, her sore body. She began to move faster.

Uncertain how long she’d been walking, placing one worn boot in front of the other, her stockings sodden, her head pounding, her mind wandering, it took Janet a moment to understand that what she saw looming through the trees before her was not a figment of her fevered mind, but an actual kirk.

Staggering out of the woods, she noted how dark the day had become, how thickly the snow fell. For all she was an escaped witch, an emissary of the devil who had turned from God and denied her baptism, the huge grey stone building with its cross piercing the heavens was one of the most welcome sights she’d ever seen.

Dropping to her knees, she crawled the last few feet to its door and rested her back against it. Why, with its little graveyard, the falling curtain of snow and the black skeletons of the trees, it was quite pretty really. She sent a prayer to the God she thought had forsaken her, twisted slightly and, with her last remaining strength, banged on the wood.