The air is thick with death and grief.

There are so many people crammed into the confined space of the parlour room, that for a moment, I cannot breathe.

'Mama,' I whisper and tighten my grip on her hand.

Mama affords me half a smile as she looks down at me, touching the delicate fingers of her other hand to my forehead, but the smile does not reach her eyes. They are stricken and drenched in a pain so deep that I feel its heavy weight pulling on me and I have to look away.

But where to look?

I can look at the solemn faces all around me, grey ghostly visages of woe as if they too are dead and not just spectators to this maudlin scene. I can look at William, as he presses against Papa's coat, his thumb shoved into his mouth, his other hand curled around Papa's leg as if letting go might allow him to fall into some dark abyss below his feet. I can look at Grand-Mama's face, so tightly pinched with sorrow that all the lines converge making her skin look sallower than usual. I can look at the miniature chandelier above our heads, the tiny crystal orbs coated lightly with ashen dust. I can look at the framed pictures that line the walls, where the eyes of Great-Uncle Bernard and Great-Grand-Papa Elmes peer sternly at the child that simply cannot still her feet for fear she may grow as stiff and cold as the man resting in the open casket.

The man I do not want to look at.

Grand-Papa Rampton is still now, but I remember when he fell, clutching his hand over his chest, clawing at his shirt collar as if it were a snake wrapped around his throat. I remember how he bucked and spasmed on this very parlour room floor, his right leg shaking erratically before tensing, his toes en-pointe like a ballet dancer. I remember how his face contorted into shadow and how I had stared at him, unable to unfreeze my body, as his died before my eyes.

I don't want to look at him now, because he does not look like he once did. A man so full of summer light that you would have thought the sun existed under his skin and not in the skies above our heads. A man given to peals of bumptious laughter, often on occasion when it was inappropriate, for which would earn him a telling off from Grand-Mama and then he would tip me a mischievous wink as soon as she turned her attention elsewhere. He is not that man now, but an empty thing, encased in a box only fit to hold dead flesh that will rot soon enough.

No. I do not want to look at him, but I do not know where else to look.

A faint mumbling arises close to the door and I hear a man's voice, deep and monotone, in the hallway. Inside the parlour room, many make the sign of the cross and mutter under their breaths, while Grand-Mama Rampton holds tight to the silver crucifix on the chain around her neck and begins to rock back and forth gently in the armchair. A small pained moan escapes her dry lips.

A man enters the room and stands in the doorway, swaying ever so slightly. He is tall, his silver-tainted curls brushing the top of the doorframe and I feel the room move, almost as if every single person here has just recoiled from his presence, a sea of bodies oscillating as one. I do not know who he is, nor have I ever seen him before, but everyone here seems to know him, and their distaste of this strange man is as palpable as the grief that haunts this place now.

The man's coat is long and dark, reaching down to his knees and, I notice, it has been mended at one corner by someone in possession of little skill with a needle. The stiches are thick and roughly-hewn, layered up heavily and pulling the woollen fabric taut around the damaged section of coat. His nose is ruddy, just like Grand-Papa Rampton's friend, Mr. Darborough – who stands now just to the left of Mama and me - a man given to much drinking, so my Grand-Mama always said. I wonder if this man is also given to drink, although I am quite sure he is not a fellow Grand-Papa would have entertained at his gentlemen's evenings at Lutwyche Hall with Mr. Hawkstone. Under his weathered frock coat, the man wears a shirt which was no doubt once white and has now faded to a washed-out grey reminiscent of gruel. Apart from his nose, his skin is almost the same colour as his shirt, flesh and cloth blending together as one.

He looks at no one as he stands there and no one looks at him and if it wasn't for the fact I had heard him speak already, and had seen everyone shrink back from his presence, I would think him a ghost that only I could bear witness to. He is like dust, this man, a wisp of sombre cloud, except for his hands which look large and strong and are clenched into fists by his sides.

He takes one step into the room and it is then that I see the boy.

The boy remains so close to the man's back, I had not even realised he was there, and I think that perhaps he wishes he was not. He looks petrified, his shoulders hunched up around his neck, his hands clutching tight to the small, worn Bible held at his chest. Easily a head taller than me, dark, unkempt curls tumble around his cheeks, almost shielding his face from my view. His lower lip trembles, and I wonder vaguely then whether it is from cold and not terror, for his clothing is thin and threadbare and would barely protect him from the bleak January wind that has rattled the windows every night since Grand-Papa passed.

When the man steps forward, so does the boy, keeping in pace with the man's slow, shuffling gait. They move in unison to where my Grand-Papa lays, his cold, dead hands clasped over his broad chest, coins covering the eyes that had once sparkled with so much brightness that I could not now fathom how that light had gone out. Raising his hands, which I see are as rough and as dry as the reapers' down on Little Roe Farm, where Grand-Papa used to take William and I to taste the fruit from the summer harvest, the man touches his thick fingers to Grand-Papa's chin, forcing his colourless lips apart.

I inhale sharply, for I do not want this man to touch Grand-Papa. I do not want him to cast his shadow over the man I loved so dearly.

The boy's head jerks to one side, as if seeking out the source of the gasp, even though his eyes find nothing but the russet-coloured rug beneath my feet.

Mama's hand covers my cheek, pressing my face to her chest and averting my gaze from these two strange, dark figures that have invaded our family home.

'Don't look, Lillian,' she whispers urgently, her mouth brushing the top of my head and I can feel her body trembling, the kind of quaking that only fear arouses. 'Never look in the eyes of a Sin-Eater, for you will be as cursed as he is and will forever languish in darkness.'

My face might be turned away, but my curious soul is piqued and cannot keep still and my eyes search for the boy despite Mama's warning. I see him, in the corners of my vision. He is scowling now, dark heavy lines furrowing his pale brow, and he blinks furiously, I think to push back the tears that have welled in his eyes.

In front of him, the man is bending down over Grand-Papa's body. He is still holding Grand-Papa's mouth open and I watch in horror as his face draws closer and closer, his mouth now opening too. Nobody else is watching this and I don't understand why. They stand with their heads bowed and eyes closed, many with their eyes tightly screwed shut as if they fear to open them and see. Just before the man covers Grand-Papa's mouth with his own, tendrils of black smoke rise between them, snaking out from Grand-Papa, tentacles of blackness like the sea-monster in one of William's favourite stories. They reach upwards, curling into the space between the two men, before slithering into the man's mouth and he consumes them, as if he hungers for the taste of them on his tongue.

I cannot breathe again, only this time it is naught to do with the crushing congregation in the parlour room. My throat tightens, and panic rises, the bones in my legs liquefy and become unable to hold me up any longer as a whispering voice forces its way into my ears, harsh and cold and intrusive.

Mama is screaming and Grand-Mama is wailing, but I can do nothing but fall.

Before the darkness enshrouds me, I see the boy, now looking directly at me, his face a cold hard mask that reminds me of the dead, and his lips move as if he is chanting something under his breath.

As if he is the one who is whispering.