‘Oh,’ he says, sounding disappointed. ‘I had thought there might be Pearly Gates or somesuch, or even the Devil come to see if he can drag you down to hell, with the serpents and the fire and all that.’

‘Well, mibbie that happens too,’ I suggest. ‘But I was only half-hanged, so I never got there.’

We are interrupted then by Mr Munroe, whose appearance makes the boy scarper away with his pebbles.

‘Mistress Dickson,’ he says, ‘you look pretty as a picture in that necklace.’ He offers me his arm and I take it, and off we walk, just two ordinary folks taking a stroll.

With my other hand, I touch the gems about my neck, and the rope-mark too. For the first time in a long time, my skin feels dazzling and luminous and glorious.

And for the first time in a long time, I know exactly who I am, and I am at peace with it.

I am Maggie Dickson. I am walking up to Musselburgh golf links before it gets dark. I am two-and-twenty years of age and I am the first Dickson girl in many generations to leave the fishing trade. I didn’t want that harsh sort of life. One day I will be Mistress Munroe, the harbourmaster’s wife. One day I will be a mother again. One day my raw grief for Susanna will fade a little, like my neck bruise. But that is all to come.

EPILOGUE

Musselburgh
Forty years later: May 1764

It is a spring day when it finally happens. A wet and windy day in early May, which starts with the first drop of all the pink blossoms that have bloomed around town. A drop that makes everyone sigh and say, ‘Blossoms are bonnie, but they never last very long.’ I don’t see the blossoms fall, for I have not been able to leave my bed for a while, but Joan tells me about it and I don’t wish to see it.

I do not feel the wind or the rain, either, for I am under blankets and kept warm by fires and the holding of hands. Joan’s hand is so old now that to see it startles me sometimes. My husband, the finest harbourmaster that Fisherrow has ever known, is here and his gentle voice hums like a bee. Our children are here, all four of them.

But you are not to feel sorry at this scene, for I would not have wished for a better, kinder passing.