A corpse she is, rotted and caved at the edges. Her nose is a stub and on one side where there should be the square of a shoulder there’s a bowl-shaped hollow. One arm comes to its natural end, but the other sheers off like a shard of bone just past the elbow. She is grisly and repugnant and rightly unseen.

And then Paul turns round from his fire making. What his malady is, I cannot tell, but the skin on his face, neck, and the backs of his hands has been deeply scarred. The rest of him seems untouched.

I wonder if they’ll leave me here by the door until I die. Or mayhap I already passed into death on the apothecary lane, and this is the underworld, Paul and Brida two demons. If so, they are curious. I hear Paul behind me picking up the piss pot, the ewer, the broom, then climbing the ladder to the loft.

‘A dung heap. Floor hasn’t been scrubbed in a month of Makersdays, and nary a crumb to be seen,’ he says, coming back down with something in his hand.

‘What do you expect?’ says Brida. Then, ‘What’s that?’

‘Better than crumbs,’ he answers, and I hear the slosh of liquid. The jug of spirits.

All at once Paul’s dragging me towards the fire. He lets me down so close, I can feel my hairs burning. Does he mean to scar me like himself?

‘Brida?’ Paul says, impatient-like.

‘Just here,’ she answers, and I feel a cool rush, then burning about my neck. She’s pouring the spirits on my wound. ‘Hush, now,’ Brida soothes. ‘Will loosen the thickened blood. The cloth’s stuck in there fast.’

‘Stop your mouth!’ Paul’s curdled jaw is set. ‘You should not speak to her. We should have nought to do with her.’

‘Very well, I shan’t speak,’ says Brida brightly. ‘But do stitch her up, dearie. She can’t be worse than me, and you haven’t been cursed by our association.’

‘I very much beg to differ, you old sack of pus,’ spits Paul. ‘I was not born to coarseness. I have gentle blood. If my life be not cursed, you have surely begun to lose your wits along with your limbs.’

There’s a wet snorting sound in response. Brida is laughing, a bubble of snot blooming out of the hole where her nose ought to be. ‘Oh, you.’

A glint catches my eye. Paul’s threading a needle in the firelight. ‘I shall repair her wound. And, Maker help me, this act of charity will prove powerful mitigation for my past sins.’ The needle stabs into my neck, and I mewl like a rat dying in a trap.

‘She could eat your sins,’ suggests Brida.

‘Indeed,’ says Paul. ‘She shall eat my sins gratis, I hope.’