“You must have a reward,” the girl decides, “for rescuing Min-Min.” She turns smartly on one heel and starts crossing the street. “Wait here,” she commands, over her shoulder.

I’m not her servant, to be ordered around, though I don’t run off either. Instead, I kick my boot against a nearby stone step and stay there, simmering at being told to wait. Especially by a Travester. I’ve been taught to hate the Travesters, hate them like a stone in my throat, in my heart. After what they’ve done to my father, my mother. Yet still I wait – my curiosity is too strong. What will she give me? Maybe some food – there is food being handed around on large trays in that room. And besides, another part of me wants to see the girl up close again and smell her herby hair. It’s like two sides of me are fighting with each other – the hatred and the curiosity – and the battle makes me hesitate.

Two adults are peering out through one of the windows. The girl is there too, pointing, talking about me. Heat rushes into my face at the attention, along with a dash of fear. Travesters staring at me. Again I get the impulse to run, while I still can.

But then the girl comes traipsing back out again, a firm grip on the dog, its eyes bulging. She is cradling something in the palm of her hand. A small cup of black paper, as thin as skin, which contains a soft, golden cube. “Go on,” she says lightly, “hold out your hand.” I do as she says, reluctantly, and she quickly gives me the thing – managing, I notice, to do so without touching me.

I clear my throat. “What is it?” I croak, feeling lost.

Her laugh rings out, making me want to crush the thing in my fist. Then a thought seems to occur to her. Head tilted, she says, “Why, it is a sweetmeat.”

We stand like that for a moment, facing each other, the dog quivering between us, our eyes meeting. She’s a Travester, I remind myself, you can’t trust them. But the look in her eyes isn’t about betrayal, it’s something else, something I can feel in myself. Then a voice comes from the house and the spell is broken. The girl glances back over her shoulder: she is being called. Without a word, she nods her chin towards me and goes back across the street, vanishing inside the building.

Quickly, I leave the area, shoulders hunched and walking fast, before I get any more unwanted attention. Back across the stone bridge, back along the towpath, the sweetmeat cupped loosely in my hand. I get to the bench underneath the yew tree, and sit down so I can have a good look at the thing.