It has been a winter death-rattle, similar to the ones that took Aunt Jenever, then Da, then Ma, then Dorothy. We do not make old bones in Edinburgh, nor in Fisherrow. Mibbie one day there will be an easier way to earn a living. One that does not break our skin and our backs, or cause us to battle the weather. So I am not ancient, but I am not too young for death. Death has walked with me for many years, but I am suddenly afeared of it, afeared of pain and what lies ahead, and of Judgement.

But that fear passes, right at the moment that I become aware that I no longer feel the weight of the blanket, or my husband’s hands.

Oh, it is different this time. Different from the day they hanged me and different from how I’d imagined it too. And if you want to hear this part of my story, you do not have to touch my neck for luck, or pass me a coin to find out what happens in the hereafter, for it is a short but simple tale and is the very truth.

I’d thought there might be Pearly Gates, as I’d talked of them and been asked of them often enough, but I do not see any. Not yet.

Nor snakes. And that is a relief.

Instead a small basket lies just ahead. It looks like a fishing creel, my old one, the one that saw me through my hardest travels. As I approach, I see there is something inside it, moving. Oh! It cries and raises its fists to its mouth and suckles, as though desperate for its mother.

I bend down to look at her. Susanna. My neck moves freely for the first time in years, for my neck-mark is gone now. And the red-gem necklace too. I must have lost it on the journey.

I am not sad about that. Although that necklace had become part of me, its time is over now. Joan will mibbie wear it for a while, along with that glass ring she always admired.

Oh, goodness, Susanna is as beautiful as I remembered.

I pick her up and bring her to my breast.

Our embrace, when it finally happens, has been half a lifetime coming.

HISTORICAL NOTE

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. From 1690 to 1809 the Scottish ‘Act Anent Murthering of Children’ meant that mothers who kept their pregnancy secret could be tried for murder if the baby died. A similar law existed in England. The laws were written onto the statute books amidst concerns about undeclared births, abandoned children and illegitimacy. The women who were tried were often those who had given birth to illegitimate babies.