She looks at me and nods with her head towards the road ahead. Mayhap there’s an Eating coming. Just thinking of the word eating, I drool so much I have to clamp my lips shut and swallow. Then I remember the food will be somefolk’s sins, and the drool reverses, and I have to keep my jaw shut so as not to retch. I want to eat so badly. Yet the cost.

The sin eater takes on the sins of others, so says the Maker’s Book. (Or, so the Makermen say the Book says. I know some letters, but only how they fit to make two words: May and Owens.) The Maker’s Book says the sins are lifted from the sinner and placed on the sin eater’s soul. I always pictured that my own coffin would be nearly bare. Even when I stole the bread, it was only roast pigeon added to the Simple Eating on the pine board.

And now . . . The thought stops me short, right in the middle of the road like an ass. Whatever sins we’ll find at the Eating, if I eat, will become mine. And I won’t shed them. I’ll take them to my judgement. How has it taken me so long to see this? There’s a choking sound behind me. I start to turn, but it comes again, closer. It’s not behind me. It’s my own throat, closing up. My rib bones shrink in, too, like a too-tight shift with no place left for breath. The Sin Eater looks at me again – at my eyes, my lips, my throat – like a cunning woman assessing which herbs she might need to heal me. Then it comes, her hand straight across my cheek with a great smack. I stumble and nearly fall. She doesn’t pause to see if I right myself.

The main room’s been cleared for the coffin. The goodwife stands by the wall, a neighbour’s hand on her for comfort. The coffin’s well joined. On it are bowls of porridge, cream, and boiled eggs. There’s a plate with leeks, a pile of salt, a small loaf of bread, and a pot of honey. In the moment it takes my eyes to see the food, my belly makes the choice. I will eat. It’s not the choice I want. A small voice says, Think of your da. He would never. But then the other voice, shouting through my belly and up into my heart drowns out the little voice. And I know that questions about sin and souls are for Makermen, not hungry girls. My soul will pay whatever price it must, because that price is later and eating is now. Shame blooms across my chest.