After the collar was placed on me, everyfolk in the courtroom turned away. All I could think on was the throbbing of my tongue, so it took a moment to know they were waiting. It took a moment more to know they were waiting for me. My feet were light as clouds and my collar weighted like stone. Tipping like a drunk woman, I walked by the other girls, their eyes on the ground. I walked by the recorder, his eyes on his parchment. By the Makermen, their eyes towards the sky.

Seeing my house after weeks away, a great lump grows in my chest. When did it get so run-down? The tiles are pebbled with rot, and the front shutter hangs askew. The garden weeds have grown nearly to the window ledges like they might eat the house whole. I laugh at the sight. Da always said, Know where you’re from. Mine is shabby indeed.

I want to run away. Run off to another town where no folk know me, and pretend I was never made a sin eater. Could I do it? Brave the murderers and thieves along the roads? But anywhere I’d go, folk’d know I didn’t belong. I’d be swept up by a constable to be whipped and burned through the ear like the girls in jail. Or worse, be swept up by folk like my Daffrey kin and tied to a stove or made to whore. Then I remember the collar and the S tattooed onto my tongue. I’m marked. No matter where I go, I’m a sin eater.

There’s a scuffle behind the shutter as I step up to my old door. It’s blocked when I try to push it open.

‘This is my home!’ I cry. In an instant, my tongue is throbbing again, and I taste blood. Whoever’s taken over my home says nothing back.

Bessie comes out from next door to see what the clamour is. ‘Why, that’s May’s voice, is it?’ But when she sees me her jaw closes and opens like a newt eating a fly.

‘Bessie,’ I say, tears wetting my cheeks from the pain of my tongue.

Bessie shrieks and begins the Maker’s Prayer. Her hand pushes out in front of her as if for protection.

Lee steps out of the kitchen door. ‘But that’s May,’ she says. ‘She’s got a—Mother! Do you see what’s around her neck?’

‘You do not see her, Lee!’ Lee’s eyes fall to the ground. ‘If she speaks to you, you must silence her with your holiest prayers. No matter what she says.’

‘But, Bessie,’ I say. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘What’s wrong with her tongue?’ Lee cries. ‘There’s a snake on her tongue!’

‘“Maker mine, forever of the sun’s light,”’ Bessie chants. ‘Pray, Lee!’

‘“Maker mine,”’ Lee says uncertainly.

‘Bessie, where am I to go?’ I plead.