I left the next morning, though Hetta near wept as she urged me to stay. All my possessions still made a light load. Bingtown was only two days away by foot, but even so, I’d only been there twice in my life. Both times, I had gone with my parents. My father had carried me sometimes on his shoulder, and my mother had cooked food for us at night. But they were both long gone. Now I walked the road alone, and my heart pounded fearfully at the sight of every passing traveller. Even when I was alone, fear rode with me, dangling from the necklace about my neck.

That night I left the road, to unroll my blanket in the lee of some rocks. There were no trees for shelter, no friendly nearby stream, only a hillside of lichen-sided boulders and scrubby brush. Hetta had given me a little sack of meal-cakes to last me on my way. I was too frightened of thieves to build a fire that might draw them, so as the westering sun stole the colours from the day, I huddled in my blanket and nibbled on one of my meal-cakes.

‘A fine beginning to my new life,’ I muttered when the last dry crumbs of the cake were gone.

‘No worse than what other women of your line have faced,’ whispered a voice. It came from my shirtfront. In an instant, I had snatched off chain and pendant and flung it from me. It caught on a bush and hung there, silver chain glinting in the last of the sunset. The dangling pendant came to rest facing me. Even in the fading light, I could see that it had taken on lifelike colours. It raised tiny eyebrows at me in disdain. ‘It’s a foolish choice you’re making, girl,’ it warned me.

‘Throw me away, and you throw away your inheritance. Just as your grandmother did.’ Frightened as I was, the small voice was so like my grandmother’s that I could not ignore it. ‘What are you?’ I demanded.