SEVEN YEARS LATER

The road to Lutwyche Hall is a cruel and arduous route, marred by potholes that make the trap judder all the way, until I think my bones might never stop shaking.

We are afforded little in the way of blissful coverage from overhanging trees. Today, the sun is merciless, having plagued the county with three weeks of a blistering heat that has left the fields arid and has shrunk the stream that runs close to our house to nothing but a pathetic trickle of water that crawls sluggishly over rocks and hardy weeds.

I swallow, running a finger along the inside of the high-necked collar of my black dress, although there is little room in which to try and free my strangled throat. I might as well have been wearing a noose about my neck. The thick skirts feel heavy and restrictive about my legs. My arm is already growing tired from holding the parasol above my head – for what little good it is doing - and sweats dampens my back and sticks my dress to my skin.

'Papa, can you really not go any faster?' I call out.

Papa, who is upfront with the horses' reins gripped tightly in his hand, waves me off with the other, barely glancing in my direction. Not that I can blame him. I think I have implored him three times already to pick up the pace, but I know my father and slow and steady is just as much his motto, as is a place for everything and everything in its place. He is as sure and steadfast as he is organised and meticulous, and that, unfortunately, means snail's pace all the way to Lutwyche Hall.

'Careful, Lily,' my brother says, pressing the back of his hand against his damp forehead, 'any faster and we will end up in a ditch and we all know how much you despise getting your clothes dirty.'

William is joking, of course, for I am well-known for all the scrapes and adventures of my childhood which had invariably resulted in me splattering mud over my finest outfits and often tearing holes in skirts that Mama then had to spend hours mending. That was until she forced me to mend them myself, and after that, I tried my best to take better care of my clothes, although it did not stop me from yearning to be back running through the fields as if the Devil were at my back and I were laughing in spite of it.

'Perhaps I should have spent my life clutching onto Papa's coattails for fear of getting dirt on my finery, much like yourself,' I reply, poking out my tongue at him.

Mama tuts and shakes her head, moving to adjust the angle of her parasol. 'Honestly, anyone would think you are both still children the way you carry on, and today of all days. I hope there'll be no such shenanigans when we arrive. Mrs. Hawkstone is apparently besides herself with grief. We must all act with respect and dignity at this most terrible of times.'

'I'm surprised Mrs. Hawkstone isn't swinging from the rafters, now that her beastly husband has done the decent thing and passed away,' I say, rolling my eyes and earning a snort from William in the process. 'Besides herself with grief indeed! I wager it was all she could do not to scream her thanks to the Heavens when he fell down those stairs. He must have landed with such an awful bump too.'

'Lillian Antonia Elmes!' Mama replies, trying her best to appear horrified. 'You mustn't say such things about dear Mr. Hawkstone.'

'Mama, you are quite mad. Mr. Hawkstone was a pest and a snake of a man, as you rightly know and did warn me about many years ago.'

I tug at my dress collar some more, knowing it is futile and wondering whether I can get away with unfastening the button at the back of my neck without Mama knowing.

'Elizabeth said that he had never quite mastered the art of staring at a woman's face rather than her breasts and that his hands had an unpleasant habit of finding themselves in places they shouldn't go,' I say.

At this, William collapses into giggles in the seat opposite, pressing his knuckles against his mouth to try and stifle the laughter that will erupt in a torrent if he isn't careful. He is always given to loud, raucous laughter, much like Grand-Papa Rampton was.

Mama purses her lips, but she isn't angry. There is a faint sparkle of amusement in her eyes and the corners of her mouth quiver as if she is attempting to suppress a smile, which is Mama to the core. I constantly marvel at how she is always such a wonderful dichotomy of child-like humour and a solemnity into which she seems to be able to switch seamlessly whenever the circumstances call for it.

'I despair of you both, I really do,' she says, dabbing her lace-edged handkerchief against her throat.

The sun is harsh as we round the bend close to the village border, stripping everything it touches with a cruel hand.

'Mr. Hawkstone was not the most genteel of men, I know,' she continues, 'but he was a good acquaintance of your father and your grandfather before him, and we are going to pay our respects. I expect you both to be on your best behaviour. Especially you, Lillian.'

I open my mouth to protest why she should specifically target me over William, but Mama's face grows suddenly serious as she looks past my shoulder and she presses her palm flat to her chest as if her heart means to burst out of her body.

'Go faster, Richard,' she urges Papa.

'Stop flapping, dear,' Papa calls back, but I notice that he does snap down on the reins, and the horses pick up their trot. I grip hold of the side of the trap, fearful that I will be thrown clean out of my seat.

'Mama?' I question, turning my head to follow her stricken gaze just in time to see a young man, walking on the roadside, close to the grassy verge.

He walks with long, assured steps, is dressed all in black, and clutches a leather-bound book to his chest in a way that looks like a strangely uncomfortable position, with his elbows sticking out from his body. His head is lowered, and he does not flinch away from the carriage as we pass, almost as if he does not know we are there at all, but of course, he must, as no one could be oblivious to the clatter of the horses' hooves or the deep, constant rumble of the wheels against the road.

I stare at him as we pass, taking in his height and the breadth of his shoulders, a strong jaw-line faintly grazed with beard and a chaotic mess of dark curls atop his head.

'Look away,' Mama hisses and all amusement has been leeched from her voice, replaced by a tinge of fear and a sharp tone that seems so unlike her. 'Look away right now, Lillian. Do not look upon him. Bow your head.'

I do as I am told – for once – because Mama is so forcibly insistent and so suddenly changed in her demeanour, that I am shocked into following her instruction. Papa continues on, and we are a good distance from the man before Mama seems to uncoil before my eyes. Relief flows from her parted lips in what looks like a blessed exhale of breath, even though I can still see the ghost of whatever haunts her in the way her clenched fists refuse to release handfuls of her skirts.

'Goodness,' she exclaims. 'Goodness.'

'I-I don't understand,' I stammer. 'Mama, who was that man?'

'Silly Lily,' William says, gently chiding me for my ignorance, something which he adores to do whenever he gets the chance. 'Don't you know anything? That was the Sin-Eater. The Outcast. The Devil come to take away all Mr. Hawkstone's sins, although I fear he may have some job on his hands for that old buzzard had more sins than all the debauched city-dwellers from London and their whores combined.'

'William Elmes! You disgusting creature!' Mama squeals, fanning herself. 'You forget yourself, you really do. Do not mock Mr. Hawkstone in such a way and certainly do not mock the Sin-Eater.' She shifts in her seat, attempting to straighten out her skirts, frowning at the creases she herself has caused. There are tiny damp patches there now and she looks distraught at the sight of them. 'To mock the Sin-Eater is to mock the Devil himself and you want neither knocking on your door, mark my words.'

William, who still has a habit of looking like he's twelve years old whenever he's chastised by our parents for it brings a scowl to his face that only a child would sport, wrinkles his nose. 'Oh, nonsense, Mama. You talk about Daniel Carver as if he were some kind of demon. He's just a man, a very strange man granted, but a man nevertheless.'

I look sharply at William. 'Daniel Carver? I thought the Sin-Eater was called Joseph or Jacob or something like that?'

'Joseph Hemsby was his uncle,' Mama says, now fanning herself furiously as if saying the name has anguished her once again. 'He passed in the wintertime two years ago now. Daniel, his nephew, has taken on the family business, if you can call it a business.'

William sighs as if exasperated, which is most likely true, for he is almost always exasperated by our parents. In fact, William often seems exasperated by the whole world.

'Goodness, Mama,' he says. 'Why do so many speak with such hypocrisy about the Sin-Eaters? You require their services when circumstance demands it, and yet, you treat them in such disdain. If you all dislike them so much, then do not call upon them. Let the likes of Daniel Carver fester out in the forest and keep your mad superstitions to yourselves.'

Mama glares hard at William, but her troubled eyes flicker in my direction enough for me to notice.

I know why.

The incident before Grand-Papa Rampton's funeral – an incident that had left me bed-ridden for a week after with a fever that raged incessantly, then two weeks following with a cough that racked my body until I thought I would never be rid of it – had been a nagging black cloud of my childhood. Insistent that I had been sure what I had seen take place that day when everyone else had averted their eyes, Mama and Papa had been horrified and forbid me to speak of it ever again. After that, I had been party to too many hushed whispers and narrowed eyes and even William, who had come to me in the night to hear my tales, refused to believe me and announced one evening at dinner, that I was quite mad and that it was about time Mama and Papa packed me off to an asylum where I could spend the rest of my days barking like a dog and pulling out tufts of my hair.

He had been joking, but the joke had fallen flat on my parents at the time, and William never could understand why they had punished him so, despite not generally being the type of parents who dished out harsh punishments to their children. Of course, then, not only had I embarrassed my parents dreadfully, but William had been metered out a punishment he didn't believe he deserved, and it was all my fault, something he rarely let me forget.

In a bid to cleanse myself of the shame of what I'd done, I'd pushed down hard on images of those black tendrils of smoke that Joseph Carver had consumed. I'd pushed down hard on the whispering voice that I'd heard, bidding it begone, yet I couldn't banish it from my dreams, nor could I rid myself of the boy's face, glaring at me as I fell. In my dreams he came with eyes as black as coal and a mouth from which ebony tentacles slithered out over his lips, curling over his cheeks and reaching out as if they wished to consume me, just as the Sin-Eater had consumed them.

I shiver now, despite the unforgiving heat. The trap turns the corner into the thick of the village, leaving the Sin-Eater far behind, but in my mind, I can still see his relentless trudge along the dusty path. I can still see his head bowed, eyes lowered, looking as much of a wraith as his Uncle had, all those years before.

Daniel Carver is as grey as the dirt that had covered his boots and hem of his trousers. He is as grey as the fields where the sun has bleached the crops of colour. A ghost now walks into the village, and all at once I feel something of Mama's fear, as if it is infectious and seeping into my skin.

And yet, there is something else besides the fear: a strange and peculiar yearning to know more about the man who plagued my nightmares when we were both but children.

I should know better than to talk now, but I have to say something. 'He lives in the forest?' I ask, sounding more like the twelve-year old girl I was then, than the nineteen-year old woman I am now. 'Alone?' The thought of that injects a coldness into my belly and a sudden pang of sadness for the lone figure who has frightened Mama so.

Mama swallows, a visible gesture that seems to pain her. 'It is for the best, Lillian. We know very little of what the Sin-Eaters can do, aside from the service they perform for us – which they are paid for, mind – but their craft is a dark one, there's no doubt about that. Think not that they take on the sins of the deceased out of some Christian duty, for there is nothing Christian about what they do. It is a black art, and once the sins are consumed, they will live with that darkness for the rest of their pitiful days. One can only imagine what that must do to their hearts.'

She smooths back her ashen-blonde hair where the heat has frazzled the wispy bits at the scalp-edge. 'We cannot have these people living among us. It is far better that Mr. Carver abides out in the forest. Anyhow, it was his Uncle's home after all, and only right that he should now remain there.'

With that Mama purses her lips and looks away and I know that expression on her face more than most she gives.

The subject is closed.

I suppose I should be grateful, for this is the most I've ever heard Mama talk about the Sin-Eaters. I have always been most resentful of the fact she would never speak to me of what happened at Grand-Papa Rampton's internment, or that she would never allow me to speak of it either. All it did was fuel more questions in my head and leave me with a burning curiosity that was never once satiated with the answers. Time had allowed the subject to remain dormant for many years, but the sight of Daniel Carver has sparked a fire that has clearly never really been extinguished.

Not that there will be anything to gain from questioning Mama. William is right. Mama's superstitious fear of the Sin-Eaters – a fear that is entrenched in the local community to the point of damned hysteria – will prevent her from ever answering my questions. William, on the other hand, appears to know far more than I could have ever imagined.

I bury the stinging resentment that he possesses knowledge that I do not, and shoot him a questioning glance, which he shrugs off with an irritating smirk. My dear little brother knows only too well that I am now desperate to squeeze the information from him and will no doubt withhold what he can to see what he can gain from my ignorance.

Then and there, I resolve that I will get the answers I am looking for about the mysterious Mr. Daniel Carver.

No matter what it might take.