In the story, Greta pushes the sin eater into the fire instead and they find their way home. When I heard the story I always pictured myself as Greta.

I make my way beyond the north wall of the castle, where winds come worst. Northside’s the sort of place mothers use to scare daughters. Any more of that lip, and I’ll sell you up in Northside. I never knew exactly to what a purpose a girl might be sold, but my fantasies were enough. Worse, mayhap.

The edge of Northside looks like the rest of the town, except a bit dirtier, a hair poorer. The homes all have thatched roofs, no tiles or slate. One even has a sheet of heavy felted wool instead of a wall that fills and snaps in the wind. In the lane I walk down, two boys run about in oversized men’s clothes, like me playing dress-up with my mother’s nightdress, but out on the road like it’s their real clothes.

The boys use a stick to hit a pig’s bladder. When they see me, they go to the side of the road, wanting to look but not nearly daring. Just as I pass, the larger one shoves the smaller at me. The smaller cries in terror and turns to beat the larger with his fists.

A row of taverns and alehouses signals Northside proper, whores in twos and threes standing at each door to wave folk in. ‘Want a look? One bit. Two for a touch.’

They see my collar, and a whisper flies across the line. Eyes go every which way. But I feel them on my back when I go by. I still don’t know where I’m going.

After the tavern row is a lane of fortune-tellers. Northside seems to be like the rest of town where lanes all have shops of the same trade along them, but here the shops are the kind folk don’t want to be seen visiting. One fortune-teller has incense burning in the doorway. Mayhap Egypsies. Bessie said Egypsies are like witches.

Simple-makers and apothecaries are on the lane that comes next. Some windows have unnatural things in them like an unborn piglet in a jar and a tiny vermin with a caterpillar-like body and lots and lots of legs. This last one gives me a shiver in my guts.

The lane ends, but there’s still no sign of the sin eater’s house. The bottoms of my feet ache through my slippers. I’m accustomed to rough use on my hands from washing clothes but not on my feet.

An apothecary in a thin, black robe steps out of a shop. He looks greedily from my face to my chest.

Keeping my tongue as still as I can, I say, ‘Good sir, where may be found—’