Big Agatha told me that the world is full of children with magic inside them going about their days without ever knowing. Children who could speak to ghosts just as well as learn to fly, if only they were taught. Children who might catch storms in old brown bottles if they were given the chance and not spending days learning letters or begging for food. Big Agatha said she could smell this magic when others couldn’t and that’s why she saved us, one by one. An abandoned child with a gift inside would tickle her nose from streets away.

On the day Big Agatha saved me, the sea was the colour of a precious emerald. My mother took me to the wharf and sat me on the steps in the fi ne cold rain. She’d been into The Spotted Duck to warm herself with a noggin of rum and her dark eyes were bright like she’d caught some stars inside. She was grinning because she’d sold a fine fogle to Mr Jenkins, the publican. ‘Wait right here, Lavender,’ she said. ‘I’ll fetch us something to fill our bellies.’

I sat waiting with my stomach whining. I imagined something delicious. A new currant bun, still warm in my hands. The sky was filled with black thoughts, but here and there a bright shaft of sunlight shone through. It illuminated the leaning houses where inside all the children would be eating fl uff y white bread.

My stomach ached. My hunger gnawed. I thought of red apples and it roared. It was a ferocious tiger that would eat a hole inside me. Hour by hour, the green sea climbed the steps towards my small broken shoes. All around, the great ships bumped and knocked and the mooring ropes squeaked and chattered, and the stone steps trembled beneath me. The ship beside me had a dark oiled skin of wood that creaked, over and over, minute after minute, hour after hour. I sat waiting for something to fill my belly.

I’d jump up and grab it, whatever it was, and swallow it whole. Maybe it would be a pie. She’d call my name, ‘Lavender, look here!’ with a wicked smile and we’d gobble it down like starving cats. My arms ached and my legs quivered and then, when I didn’t think I could stand another minute, a sudden wind gusted across the harbour, a voice full of cold grey sea. It rattled the masts, set the mooring ropes humming and whispered in my ear. Listen, that wind commanded. It touched the waves that touched the sea steps that touched the periwinkles clinging there. I heard it all…

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