She frowned. ‘And Hettie means you ill too?’

I laughed. The very smell of her, the sinuous undulation of her lullaby … I remembered her at the graveyard, the feel of her weight before I fell. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘she comes to terrorize me, to taunt me and to harm me.’ My hands were gripped tight on the table and I released them self-consciously.

I smoothed my skirts and began to pack the pebbles and dolls away.

She put a hand on mine. ‘Wait.’

Getting up, she rummaged in her coat which hung from a nail by the door and drew on some gloves, then she returned and examined each doll, each pebble.

‘These,’ I pushed at the images of myself and Mary, ‘I found these in the doll’s house to which, I think, they originally belonged.’

‘Ahh.’ She nodded to herself. ‘These are best destroyed now before they can do harm.’

‘They have not already done so?’

‘You are both alive and well? Leave them here. I shall make sure they are disposed of without injury to you or Mary.’

She hesitated before picking up the widows’ whistle with a tremor. When she looked at me there was anger. ‘These are dangerous tools.’

I did not like the way she said it. ‘Can you help me?’

‘I’m not sure. I understand a little of these crafts. I know how it would be done, but I do not know if it would work.’

A flutter of unexpected hope rose in my chest.

‘And you would do this – for me?’

Her eyes were unreadable. ‘For all, Miss Swansome. To have the dead return to the living upsets the laws of nature.’

I nodded.

‘If I am to help you, you must also be there.’

‘Anything,’ I said, ‘I will do anything that is necessary.’

‘All right.’ She turned to regard the failing day; frost was beginning to crystallize in the air and she laid her hands on the table and gazed at them. I sensed, for the first time, some uncertainty. ‘It’s the full moon tomorrow. It would have to be then.’

‘What do I have to do?’

‘Meet me here at quarter past eleven. Can you get away unseen?’

I said that I could.

‘Bring anything else you think might be part of it and then we must go to the Fiaclach.’