The Sin Eater wears a badge like nobles do: a face with the lips sewn shut. Behind her the countess I saw in the castle dungeon is singing a song about cuckoo birds laying eggs in other birds’ nests. But then the dream changes, and it’s my own sins that are piled on: stealing, thinking ill of the dead, betraying the Sin Eater.

Then it shifts again, and it’s my mother, not the Sin Eater placing the stones. Stones for sins that make no sense, like giving birth to a fairy with wings and burning rich, yellow beeswax candles down to nubs. My mother wears a badge of a fox with grapes in its mouth, dripping juice. Then my granddam comes, adding more stones. I wake choking for breath, but there’s nothing on my chest.

I lie back on the mattress. My dream was like a narrow well that’s too dark to see down into, but something’s floating up, bobbing and breaking at the water’s surface. Something I’m meant to see in the murk. Candles. What was it? No, beeswax. The poppets were made of beeswax, not tallow. Only a rich folk could have made them.

I climb downstairs to use the piss pot. Brida’s on my-now-her rug. Jane’s children are there too, all in a snoring heap though it must be midday. Jane herself is awake. At first I think I must still be dreaming, because Jane’s standing before a large panel of wood painting a picture. But I’m not dreaming. She’s got a brush and pots of paint, and her picture looks just like a big house, but in a stranger style. I can’t fathom why she’s doing it. A pregnant whore painting a picture inside a sin eater’s house. A rapping at the door pulls me from my wonderings.

It’s just one messenger outside. He’s a little taller than me, black hair circling his head like wool. He’s older than the usual boys. Must be from a poor family without a penny to send word by messenger. He’s harder than the usual boys too. Something in the eyes that looks right through your clothes to your naked skin. His eyes flick to my face then to the roof of my house, a tight little curve cutting into his cheek as one side of his lips rises in a smile. The name blooms in my mind as he says it. ‘Daffrey. Recitation for the old woman.’ He’s changed since I last saw him, but now I make out the face I once knew. My cousin tucks his fingers into his waist as if out for a stroll, as if it’s an idle morning and not the one when our granddam is dying.