I try again, raising my voice against theirs, ‘Please!’ But I can barely hear the sounds in my own throat. They’ve been swallowed by the Maker’s Prayer. None can hear me. None will listen.

The first Makerman’s eyes are on the ceiling, but when he talks, I can tell it’s for me to hear. ‘The sin eater bears the sins of all folk in silence to her grave. She alone may never confess and be absolved. However, if she serves faithfully in true piety and obedience to the Maker’s will, Eve will not be able to claim the sin eater when she dies. Her soul will rise to the Maker. But the Maker knows all. She must obey in every thought and every act her whole life through.’

‘May it be,’ says the second Makerman, and all the folk in the room say it too, like when you finish a prayer.

Then the second Makerman opens his box. Inside are a needle, a bottle of ink, and a pair of tongs like a smithy uses. I start to scramble off the bench, but the second Makerman takes his stick and catches my neck in its fork. He pushes me against the wall so I’m trapped like a scold in the stocks. The first Makerman picks up the tongs, prises open my mouth, and takes hold of my tongue.

It takes a good long while to ink the S into my tongue with his needle. Long enough for my tongue to get so dry I hardly feel the pricks any longer. Long enough for my sobs to fritter away into little gasps and then to hiccups. When they’ve finished, the Makermen let me go. My tongue is throbbing and thick in my mouth, and I can taste blood and the foul ink that has forever marked me as a sin eater. This is what I’ll be until my death.

The girl next to me scoots away as if my flesh has begun to blacken and blister, like I’m plagued. The others, whose faces had earlier opened to me in wonder, encouragement, and envy, drop away like leeches full of blood. It’s the last time they look at me. It’s the last time nearly anyfolk does.

2. LAMB’S HEAD

WHEN I STUMBLE into the road, folk look and look away. Some scutter off. I scutter too. Down into the ditch, dodging puddles and beggars.