The Sin-Eater
A world by Ari Weaver
The Sin-Eater
You're the sin-eater of Cwm Du, a sheep valley in the Welsh hills in 1786. When someone dies, you eat bread and salt off their chest and take their sins, for sixpence and a loaf. Everyone needs you and nobody asks you in. This autumn a gentleman with very clean hands has eaten over three funerals before you got there, and all three of those dead have been out of their graves at night.
Playing as Traveler·
The coffin is on two trestles in the yard at Ty Isaf, with the lid leaning against the cart. Women in black shawls stand by the dairy wall. When you come through the gate the talking stops, and the men take a step back to let you pass without anyone having to touch you.
Gwenllian Jenkins lies in her good Sunday dress, her hands tied at the wrists with a strip of linen. On her chest is a pewter plate with a few crumbs on it and a grey smear of salt. Somebody has already eaten it.
Old Dilys Bevan is at the head of the coffin with a bowl of water and a rag, as if she's been waiting. She doesn't look surprised. “He came up from Pen-y-Bwlch at first light,” she says, low, in Welsh. “Mr Pugh. Ate it standing. Wiped his mouth on a handkerchief, very nice. Then he washed his hands in my bowl.”
From the house door comes Twm Jenkins, big and red-faced in his black waistcoat, with a sixpence in one hand and a loaf in the other.
“I sent for you yesterday noon,” he says. He doesn't come any closer. “Yesterday noon, I sent the boy. And that man walked into my yard before you'd even got your boots on, and now Dai Lewis is out of his grave, they're saying.” He holds the loaf out at arm's length. “So you'll do it again. You'll do it properly. Or you'll tell me what's going to come out of that box tonight.”
The bread is gone1 of 3