‘Mistress Dickson, how did you do it? Is there a method?’

‘Are you a witch?’

‘I saw her hands in the noose!’

‘That hangman will never work again!’

I march as fast as I can, caring not about bumping into folk. In my haste I send a caddie flying, his barrel of well-water spilling over the street. I cry, ‘Sorry’ over my shoulder. I can’t keep up this chase for long.

I turn into a close and see the poky hole of a gin shop, its open door revealing a peek of its depths, a flickering yellow haze of old pipe smoke and bottle-gleam. I make straight for it. I slam the door shut behind me and find the bolt and pull it across, then put a chair in front of it for good measure.

There is only one person in there, it only just having opened for its day of grim trade: an elderly woman with a wizened face. She regards me in a considered way, as though wondering whether to call a constable, but with no apparent fear of me, then wipes her rheumy eyes.

I sit down at a spindly table, out of breath. Is this what is to become of me? Hounded? Am I like a human curiosity in a travelling fair of rarities? One came to Musselburgh once, and folk queued with pennies to see two men: one the height of a small child and one with no hands or feet. Joan was desperate to see it, but Da forbade us from going.

There’s a hammering at the door and I jump, and the woman and I lock eyes. She makes her way to the door faster than I would have thought, being of some considerable years, and shouts through the timber planks, ‘Away with all of you, we are closed.’

I wonder if the crowd will simply batter down the door, but things quieten and she nods, seeming satisfied, then turns to me.

‘You can have rest for a while in here, and let them get bored waiting and get on their way, but I do not hoard thieves or servants who are running from their masters. Are you either of these?’

I shook my head.

‘Well, what are you then?’

And that is a good question, to which I have no straight answer, for I could tell her what I once was, and what I was accused of.

But what I really am, I do not know.

I know what I wish to be, though, and that is free of this grief and this mark on my neck and of the name ‘Half-Hanged Maggie’, which is abhorrent to me. But I don’t say that.