“Bryn! Bryn!”

Couldn’t he see the danger?

I ran along the shoreline, scanning the beach for Bryn. And suddenly there he was, bright and fluorescent in my dad’s old fishing jacket, waving back at me.

Yellow Dog bounded around him in crazy circles, a distant dot beside the faraway figure of the man I loved. There, I’d said it. For the first time in my life, I’d said it. I yelled it out loud, caressing the words that had taken a small miracle to finally get out.

“I love you!”

My voice was carried away on the rising wind.

Bryn threw a stick as the tide rushed around the edge of the bay. Yellow Dog leaped up into the air, and then they were gone, lost in an opaque mist.

I stopped, aware of rippling water moving relentlessly toward me.

And then it was upon me, dragging me down. The surging white wave that heralded the tide, taking all in its path.

“Bryn!”

Dear Reader,

The inspiration for this story came to me when I was walking by the sea not so very far from here, where the tide comes in quickly and silently around the outside of the bay, often cutting off those foolish enough to walk way out across the sands.

It seems so tranquil and so beautiful a place and yet, in an instant, it can become deadly–much like life, really.

I do hope you enjoy this story.

All very best wishes to you,

Eleanor

Footprints in the Sand

Eleanor Jones

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ELEANOR JONES

Born and raised on a farm in northern England, Eleanor Jones has always had a passion for animals and the countryside. She has been writing almost all of her life. The poems and stories she wrote as a child, which still grace a cupboard somewhere, were mostly written in longhand. She later wrote articles for an equestrian magazine, and her first big break came when she began writing teenage pony mystery stories. These still sell successfully in seven countries throughout Europe and in America.

Married at eighteen to Peter, she had two children and then set up the Holmescales Riding Centre in Cumbria with her husband. This busy center now trains career students, takes hacks and treks and teaches at all levels from children and total novices to competition riders.

Eleanor still rides every day, schooling and training horses, and her daughter is now a partner in the business and competes at national level. Both her daughter and her son are now married and she has three wonderful grandchildren with whom she loves to spend as much time as she can.

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I would like to dedicate this book to my dear

mother, Grace, who always loved the sea.

THE SORROWING SEA

By T J Darling

A sight so wide it fills the eye, its vast horizon

meets a sky that stretches to infinity. That holds

my heart. That sets me free.

Timeless echoes in my ears; a haunting melody;

ten thousand seabirds sing their woes to a wild

and restless sea.

So many lost beneath the waves of the mighty

ocean’s rage: How much more heartache can it

writhe its anger to assuage.

But when it sparkles, shimmering sands, its

transient beauty a promised land, it sings another

song to me, of peacefulness and harmony.

A place to live: A place to die.

A place I love.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

CHAPTER ONE

WHERE WAS BRYN? My car keys made a heavy clunk on the pine table. The sound echoed hollowly inside my head as my eyes flickered around the tiny kitchen and out into the narrow hallway. Please don’t let me be too late, please don’t let him be gone already. All the stupid, phobic insecurities that had held me back seemed shallow and insignificant now. At last I could tell him how I felt—if it wasn’t too late. Or perhaps I’d kept him waiting for too long and finally missed my chance of happiness altogether...now, when I needed it most.

The silence brought hope. If Yellow wasn’t here, then Bryn must have taken him for a walk; they’d be on the shore. I hugged my news to myself, clinging to the joy that ached inside me, deep down where the anger used to be. I longed to see his face when I told him. I couldn’t wait for him to come back; I had to find him now.

Leaving the door open, I ran back outside, taking in the scene that had filled my life forever. A scene I couldn’t live with and couldn’t live without. Miles of sand stretched out toward the far horizon, and gulls coasted in easy circles, their haunting cries echoing with a melody that spoke only of the sea—a place of beauty and of pain that held me fiercely in its grip.

To my disappointment the glistening sand was smooth and bare, not a single figure in sight. I glanced uneasily at my watch, knowing the tide so well and aware that at any moment it would come rushing around the bay. Apprehension dulled my joy, but of course Bryn knew the dangers that lurked behind the serene facade of the bay, and surely he must have heard the siren that warned of the approaching tide. He must have taken the path that led across the cliff top instead. He loved to stand up there staring out to sea, for in every view he saw a picture waiting to be painted. Perhaps I should just go back to the cottage.

No! My heart beat hard against my rib cage. What if he was still down on the shore? I knew this place with an instinct that never failed and something told me I had to find him now.

The horizon was fading, at one with the rippling sea, lost in the mist that settled over the water and spread soundlessly toward the shore. Even the gulls were silent as they waited for the tide.

“Bryn! Bryn!”

My voice disappeared into the emptiness as I stepped onto the sand, feeling its familiar, comforting squelch against my feet. I started to run along the shoreline, scanning the beach for Bryn. And suddenly there he was, a bright fluorescent figure in my dad’s old fishing jacket, waving back at me.

“Bryn! Bryn!”

Couldn’t he see the danger?

Yellow Dog bounded around him in crazy circles, a distant dot beside the faraway figure of the man I loved. There, I had said it. For the first time in my life, I’d said it. I yelled it out loud, caressing the words that had taken a small miracle to finally get out.

“I love you!”

My voice was carried away on the rising wind.

“Come back!”

He threw a stick.... Threw a stick as the tide surged around the edge of the bay.

“Bryn!”

And then he was heading toward me. Relief rushed in like the tide as I set out to meet him.

One moment, I could see him, way out toward the horizon, a tiny matchstick man against the smooth expanse of sand, picking up the stick to throw again. Yellow Dog leaped up in the air and then suddenly they were gone, lost in the opaque mist that settled over the bay. I stopped, aware of rippling water moving relentlessly toward me.

And then it was upon me, dragging me down. The surging wave that heralded the tide, taking all in its pathway as it sped around the outskirts of the bay.

“Bryn!”

My screams cut through the silence, but no answer came. I tried to go on but the force of the water held me back. Emptiness filled my soul. Surely life could never be so cruel as to take my love away just when I’d finally found him.

I stared helplessly across the murky landscape. This familiar place I both loved and hated had changed its face again, just as it always did, just like the last time but with more serenity. A distant, blurred memory heightened my screams and for a moment I became once again the terrified five-year-old girl who watched the same sea wreak its terrible wrath on her father so many years ago.

I had to go back, had to get help. But where was the shore? I floundered now, knee-deep in the fierce current, my eyes searching for the headland—firm sand beneath my feet, coarse grass and the lights of the cottage calling me home.

“Bryn... Bryn...”

I couldn’t lose him now, not now, not when I’d finally awakened to the truth that had been there all along. I placed my hand on my stomach. Today I was going to tell him. Today was supposed to change our lives.

For a moment I froze, staring out into the bleak emptiness with disbelief. Surely he would appear from the clinging white vapor, dark hair curling in the damp air, speckled green eyes dancing with mirth and Yellow leaping beside him, his golden coat wet and dripping. What a mess he was going to make! I’d have to dry him well before he could come into the cottage. Now where was the old bath towel I always used...? In the back porch, that was it. I put it in the box beneath the window.

I clung desperately to that mundane thought. A hysterical cry gurgled inside me—what if I no longer had any need for Yellow’s old towel?

The sea lapped against the shore, breaking the eerie silence. The truth sank in. Bryn was lost. Somewhere out there in the treacherous bay, my love was lost. I fumbled for my cell phone with numb, shaking fingers, tapping out the emergency number.

“Help...help me.... The tide... The tide is coming in and someone’s still out there. I can’t see him.... The mist...”

A man’s voice, deep and calm, taking control, bringing back hope.

“Where are you?”

“Jenny Brown’s Bay.”

In the pause that followed, my heart clamped tightly shut.

“Don’t worry. We’ll have someone there in no time. Just hang on and keep shouting. It will help us find you and give your friend something to focus on.”

His voice was firm again, professional, but I’d heard that hesitation. I sank down onto the harsh grass, screaming Bryn’s name until my voice would no longer work, staring out into the murky emptiness, listening to the rushing tide as hope drained away.

I was five years old again, alone and terrified, my face pressed against the window of the cottage as I watched the storm unleash its fury across the bay....

CHAPTER TWO

WHILE ELSA RUSHED HOME, desperate to see him, Bryn strode across the sand with Yellow gamboling happily at his heels. His feet crunched a mass of tiny white shells left stranded by the tide. He paused, reaching down to pick one up, running his fingers across its pearly pink iridescence before slipping it into his pocket to give to Elsa...if he decided to stay. Doubts crept in. He’d been so sure that he was doing the right thing, setting her free to finally get on with her life. But never to see her lovely face again... And how would she manage without him to protect her? He’d been there for almost all of her life; perhaps that was the problem. Perhaps he had suffocated her, stifled her dreams. She would never know unless he set her free.

The intoxicating smell of the sea flooded his senses. He leaned forward into the buffeting wind, breathing it deep into his lungs as he quickened his stride. He could see why Elsa loved this place so much, despite the heartache it spelled for her. Today its beauty took his breath away, yet behind that calm serenity lurked an untamed wildness. Just like her, really. She had that same unpredictable quality. He’d seen it the very first time he met her, a lifetime ago, a fierce changeable beauty that he couldn’t quite touch.

Thinking of Elsa brought a heavy pain to his heart. He used to wonder how long it would be before she actually faced up to her true feelings for him, finally letting him fully into her life. Now, after everything that had happened between them, he was beginning to believe that maybe, after years of waiting, he had been wrong after all. Perhaps those feelings just weren’t there for her to face up to. Perhaps he was just a habit, a safety net.

He heard the siren, way off in the distance, heralding danger. The tide was coming in. Soon that tiny white wave they dramatically called the bore would come washing around the coastline, leaving anyone still out in the bay totally stranded—leaving him stranded if he wasn’t careful. He hesitated, listening to the haunting melody of the seagulls that seemed to echo his own emotion. A wild recklessness overtook him. They always sounded the siren with loads of time to spare, and today danger felt good. He picked up a piece of driftwood and continued to walk, looking across toward the shore as he hurled it for Yellow.

There was Elsa’s little white cottage, the last in a terraced row of three, perched on a lonely rocky outcrop. And farther along was the stall where she would soon start to sell her painstakingly collected wares, which he liked to call her romantic marine life. She was away now, in Newcastle, searching for more unusual items, anything quirky and linked to the sea.

Bryn deliberately hadn’t phoned her, giving her breathing space. All he had asked for, yet again, was that she let down her barriers and love him totally, as he loved her, and yet again she’d drawn away from him. Every time he got really close to her she retreated from him in panic, as if keeping herself at bay. Now he was beginning to believe that he’d stayed around too long, waiting for something that was never to be, his very presence holding her back and keeping her from loving someone else, someone who could fulfill her dreams.

He shook his head, taking a breath.

“Yellow! Come on, Yellow....”

The big golden dog bounded toward him, stick in mouth, and together they started to run, forgetting the high-pitched wail of the siren.

He saw her as he turned back toward the shore, a tiny figure at the edge of the sand. She was back already and he was still here. What now? He’d given her an ultimatum before she left; fear crept over him at the thought of rejection. He should have gone when he had the chance. It would’ve been easier that way.

She waved at him, arms flailing in the distance, and as always, he waved back, not noticing at first the white mist that was settling over the horizon, merging sea and sand. He saw the wave coming, and it almost filled him with joy. For Bryn Evans, risks were there for the taking; danger dulled the pain of rejection and made his blood flow faster. He picked up Yellow’s stick and hurled it at the shore, heading back reluctantly.

But the water came too quickly. It rose up to his knees as the whole world suddenly disappeared around him, lost in a thick white blanket of fog. The gulls were silent but he could still hear Elsa calling his name, screaming into the opaque, curling mist. He stumbled on toward the sound, up to his waist now, with Yellow swimming beside him.

“Go on, boy!”

His voice sounded strange and hollow. The sea churned fiercely, sucking him in.

“Home, boy.... Find Elsa!”

Yellow looked at him with worried eyes, swimming around in desperate circles. Loneliness was a heavy weight. Fear sprang to life inside him as his feet left the bottom and then he, too, started to swim. Was this it? Was the decision to be taken from him? Was Elsa destined finally to move on without him after all? Her voice was fading. His whole body ached. Maybe it was for the best.

“Home, boy...! Home!”

And then Bryn was truly alone, in mind and in body, as he fought against the surging water that dragged him down.

CHAPTER THREE

I WAS FIVE YEARS OLD when my whole world changed—and I remember it so clearly.

Alone and terrified, I had pressed my face against the cottage window, watching the storm unleash its fury on the bay. The glass felt cold, but I pressed my cheek harder against it, fighting the tears that welled up. “Be brave,” my dad had said, so I mustn’t cry.

He was brave, my dad. In fact, he was the bravest person I knew. Every day—if the tide was in—he would walk down to the jetty before dawn, no matter what the weather and no matter what the other fishermen said, to take his boat across the bay into the open sea beyond. Daffyd went with him, of course, but old Mr. Mac, our next-door neighbor, said that Daffyd was even dafter than my dad. He did have a funny look, I supposed, kind of gormless really, but I don’t think Mr. Mac can have meant it because Daffyd was his son.

My dad wasn’t gormless; my dad was handsome and smart. He could take his boat out in the wildest storm and come back safely. I think he kind of liked storms.

“Got to get those fish in, darlin’,” he would say if I woke up when he kissed me goodbye. And this morning it had been the same as always. So why was I here with my face against the window and big fat tears slowly squeezing their way out? Because I had heard old Mr. Mac shouting, that was why.

I heard my dad’s voice first, soft in my ears as my eyes opened in the half light.

“Sweet dreams, darlin’. Mrs. Mac will watch out for you.”

His lips had brushed my cheek, I heard his boots tramping loudly down the narrow wooden staircase and then the back door closed with a thud. The wind was rising; I could hear it from my bed, whipping around the house and rattling the windowpanes. I curled up tight beneath my blankets and wished it was morning and my dad was coming back.

Mr. Mac was shouting. I could hear his voice clearly even though the wind was starting to howl. The wind was always howling around Jenny Brown’s Bay.

“You might be crazy enough to go out this morning, but you’re not taking Daffyd.”

My dad laughed, just like he always did. My dad laughed at everything.

“You’re going soft in your old age, Billy Mac,” he said. “Let the lad decide. He’s old enough to make up his own mind.”

I crept out of my bed despite the cold, and raced to the window, peering out into the eerie light of the half-hidden moon to see the three of them standing on the narrow pathway that led down to the shore. Mr. Mac was waving his fist; I’d never seen him so cross. Then suddenly the moon disappeared behind a dark cloud and when it came back there was just him, standing all alone, staring out across the bay. His shoulders drooped and he looked smaller somehow. I think I knew then that something terrible was about to happen.

I wasn’t scared of being alone in our cottage. Mrs. Mac watched out for me. All I had to do was press the numbers on the phone that my dad had written out for me and she would come to tuck me back up into bed again. I didn’t want to be safe in bed, though, when my dad was out on his boat in the storm, so I just waited with my face pressed against the glass, staring out at the angry sea.

After a while, I didn’t even feel the cold because my whole body had gone numb, but still I waited. The day was slowly creeping in, throwing a pale light on the crashing sea. Furious black clouds rolled across the sky and the wind howled, but I kept my eyes firmly fixed on the horizon, watching for my dad’s boat to come home. Sometimes he would flash a light for me as he sailed into the bay, but no light came.

I don’t know how it happened but I must have closed my eyes because when I opened them again it was as if I’d moved into another world, a beautiful world where storms didn’t turn the sea into a crazy beast.

The bay was smooth and calm, autumn sunshine made the water sparkle like crystal, and the sky was a clear pale blue. Perhaps my dad’s boat had come home while my eyes were shut. But I could see Mr. Mac down on the shore and he still seemed kind of small so I knew that he was sad. He was looking out at the vast expanse of shimmering sand left by the tide.

I tried to move my hands but my fingers were achingly numb and suddenly I became aware of just how cold I was. Everything chattered, from my teeth to my toes. I think that maybe even my heart was chattering because it felt all fluttery and weird.

Where was my dad? The question rose inside me like a roar. Misery overpowered me and my whole body became one big tear as I started to scream.

* * *

“SHUSH... NOW SHUSH...”

Mrs. Mac’s voice was in my ears, her warm hands wrapping me in a blanket, lifting me, carrying me down the stairs and into her house. I cuddled against her comforting bulk, my screams softening into a bubbling mess of tears as I breathed in her familiar scent of fish and roses.

“No sign?” Her voice sounded brittle and strange. I recognized the big man who filled her tiny living room. He was called Ted and he lived in a cottage at the end of our lane. Usually he was all smiley and nice but today his round face was crumpled into a frown. He shook his dark head slowly, circling his hat around and around in his hands.

“Not yet.”

His voice was very sad and when he nodded at me I saw that his blue eyes were sad, too.

“Is the lass all right?”

Mrs. Mac sighed. “Just cold and scared,” she told him. “Have you seen Billy?”

He shrugged, frowning. “Not for a while. He and Joey went off along the coast.”

“He’s gone hasn’t he, Ted—my Daffyd?”

When her voice started to rise, I slipped down from her arms and ran to hide behind the sofa.

“That Mad Mick Malone has finally done himself in and taken my boy with him.... I hope he rots in hell.”

“Now, now, Mary.”

Ted’s voice was soft and kind, and he placed an awkward hand on Mrs. Mac’s plump arm. “We don’t know that yet. Don’t give up hope. Now why don’t I get the little lass some breakfast?”

My tummy rumbled as I crept out of my hiding place.

“You nip next door and find her some clothes,” he suggested firmly.

Mrs. Mac looked up at him, then looked at me with a funny expression in her faded eyes before ambling off to do his bidding.

I didn’t think I’d be able to eat anything at all but the bread dipped in fried egg he made me tasted so good that I ate the whole plateful. Suddenly I felt sure my dad would come back after all. He knew the sea too well to let it get him, like it sometimes got other people. Mr. Mac’s brother was drowned in the sea; I think that was why he always looked so sad. Mrs. Mac looked sad now, too. Her face had gone gray and she ignored me when I went to try to sit on her lap. Ted crouched down beside me, his big knees sticking up past his elbows.

“Just leave her be for now, lass,” he said. “Things will work out, you’ll see.”

I looked past him toward the window, my eyes wide as I tried not to cry. “Be brave,” my dad had said, but what if “things” didn’t work out? Suddenly I didn’t feel big enough to be brave.

“When will my dad come back?”

My voice sounded shaky and I gripped the sides of my chair really hard. Ted coughed, covering his mouth with his hand as he glanced at Mrs. Mac.

“We’ll just have to wait and see, lass,” he told me sadly.

Mrs. Mac’s eyes were like pieces of glass and her voice was sharp, too, as if all her softness had suddenly turned into ice.

“There’s nothing to wait for,” she said. “You know as well as I do that they’ve both gone for good.”

Ted stood up, his shoulders bowed and his head almost touching the ceiling.

“Now, Mary,” he began. “Let’s not jump to...”

I didn’t find out what we shouldn’t jump to, though, for a gust of wind rushed through the house as the front door burst open. There was Mr. Mac. His stooped figure was outlined by sunshine, his white hair was all blown up into a funny shape and his mouth was working but no sounds were coming out. Clean salty air filled the room, the cries of gulls filled my head and I felt a great big sadness deep, deep down inside me. Perhaps the gulls were crying for my dad. Oh, how I wished he would come home.

“Is my dad back?” I cried, but Mr. Mac didn’t seem to hear me, then he stooped so far down that I thought he was going to fall.

Ted rushed over to help him across the small room and into his own chair by the fireside. I could tell by his face that the answer to my question was no, and so could Mrs. Mac. She seemed to have gone completely frozen now. I thought that perhaps she should get closer to the fire, too, and then she might go soft again; I liked her better when she was soft.

“Mick’s boat has been washed up on the rocks down the coast.”

Mr. Mac’s voice was so low and kind of croaky that it didn’t really sound like him at all, but I felt a great big jolt of excitement. My dad’s boat had been found! That must be good. But Ted’s eyes narrowed and I saw his jaw clench as he glanced across at me.

“Any sign of them?” His voice was low and urgent.

Mr. Mac’s face was very sad and he shook his head slowly from side to side.

“No one could have survived that storm...not even Mad Mick himself.”

I think I became invisible then because no one seemed to see me. Ted picked up his coat and headed for the door.

“I’ll go and see what I can find out,” he said. “And try not to worry.”

“Worry?” Mr. Mac murmured as the front door banged shut again. “It’s well beyond that.”

He turned to look at his wife, his eyes all wet and sad. “We’ve lost him, love,” he told her. “Our Daffyd’s gone.”

Suddenly she seemed to melt, crumpling onto the floor. But Mr. Mac didn’t go to help her; he just sat staring into space.

“There’s nothing left for us now,” he said

* * *

I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG we waited for someone to come. Mr. Mac didn’t seem able to get out of his chair and Mrs. Mac still lay on the floor, so I found a blanket and put it around her. It was a red-and-green checked blanket, her best one. I hoped she wouldn’t mind it being on the floor. Then I went and curled up next to the fire but it was getting lower so I tried to put on a log from the big brass box on the hearth. That only seemed to make it worse, though, so I decided to go and look for Ted.

The sun was so bright across the bay that I had to shade my eyes. It sparkled on the rippling water and glittered across the smooth expanse of sand, sand with no footprints at all. I searched along the shoreline but there was no sign of Ted anywhere, so I sat down and took off my shoes and socks. Sometimes, when my dad and me went for one of our walks along the beach, he would take off his shoes, too, and we would run together, right out to the edge of the sea. Now I looked down the coast to where I thought his boat might be and a big wave of loneliness stopped my breath. What if he never came back, what if we could never ever walk on the beach together again? I shook my head to get rid of the thought. My dad always came back.

I pretended he was right beside me as I stepped determinedly across the sand, feeling my bare toes dig deliciously into its crumbly surface. Ahead of me the sea glistened, a silver strip, way, way out near the sky, and I set off toward it, stopping sometimes to tread up and down until the sand beneath my feet went all soft and squishy. Then I had to jump out quickly in case it turned into quicksand and sucked me down forever. But the wet sand squelching between my toes made me feel much better, even though it was a bit cold.

I don’t know how I lost my shoes. A cloud rolled across the sun just as my feet got really cold, so I went to put them on but they were gone. I had walked almost to the edge of the sea and when I looked back to where our row of cottages nestled beneath the cliff they seemed a long way off, so I pretended to myself that my dad was right beside me as I walked back. However hard I tried, though, there was no one there, and my feet were becoming so numb that I couldn’t feel my toes at all. Eventually, when I just couldn’t walk anymore, I sat down on the huge stretch of lonely sand and started to cry.

I heard the siren blast out across the bay; an ear-splitting sound that brought me sharply to my senses. My dad had warned me about the tide so many times—“get off the sand when you hear that sound,” he used to say, and it felt to me as though he was right there speaking to me now, so I stood up again and began trudging toward the grassy shore.

I saw the white wave rushing at me around the other side of the bay. It didn’t look so dangerous, and anyway I could always swim. I was a good swimmer. I stared at it, mesmerized, wondering if I could outrun it. Fear prickled, my legs refused to work and then firm hands plucked me from the sand, swinging me high. My tears turned into a delighted shout—my dad had come to get me. I knew he’d never let me down.

“Now whatever are you doing out here all alone, lass?” came Ted’s voice. “And where are your shoes?”

A great loneliness welled up inside me, a pain that almost split my heart wide-open, and I went numb because suddenly I knew that my dad was gone forever.

I wanted Mrs. Mac, wanted to feel her plump arms enfold me, wanted her to hold me close against her big soft chest and wanted to hear her gentle voice telling me that everything was going to be all right.

“I want to go home,” I wailed as Ted swung me up to sit on his shoulders.

“And so you shall, little miss,” he promised, but his voice was flat and cold.

I clung tight to his forehead as he hurried across the sand, racing the water. It reached us just as he climbed the ledge onto the coarse grass of the shore, and then we were heading for the row of cottages that called me home.

* * *

MRS. MAC WAS SITTING IN A CHAIR now, but she still looked funny, not like Mrs. Mac at all. Ted said she had had “a bit of a turn,” but not to worry.

“It takes some people like that,” he told me in a quiet voice.

I could see he didn’t want her to hear so I whispered, too.

“Will she be better soon?”

Mr. Mac heard me. He looked up from his chair and his eyes were all misty and sad.

“We’ll never be better, lass,” he said, “for your father has lost our Daffyd.”

“Steady on now, Billy,” urged Ted. “She’s lost her father, too.”

Guilt hit hard, making everything inside me shrivel into a tight ball and I ran to the only comfort I knew. Mrs. Mac patted my head absentmindedly when I sank onto the floor, cradling her knees, but she didn’t pick me up.

“Go and get warmed up, lass.” Ted nodded at the dying embers of the fire. “Perhaps Mary will go find you some more shoes while I fill the coal bucket. The fire will be gone altogether if we don’t stoke it up a bit.”

Mrs. Mac just continued staring into space. “Elsa knows where they are,” she murmured. “She can get them herself.”

Her face was closed and gray, as if it belonged to someone else, and as I looked at her a big knot of sadness swelled and swelled inside me. Oh, why did my dad have to go away? If he hadn’t lost Daffyd, then Mrs. Mac would still be Mrs. Mac and I could sit on her knee and be cuddled. My knot of sadness hardened. I felt it grow tight inside me as I went next door to get my shoes, and by the time I came back it had turned into a solid lump. I felt cross with my dad and cross with the storm; in fact, I suppose I felt cross with the whole wide world. That night I put myself to bed, since no one else was going to. It felt lonely and cold in my bedroom at the top of our house and hunger pains gnawed at my stomach. I stared out into the darkness, trying not to cry as I watched the twinkling stars. Perhaps that was where my dad was, on a star. Or would he be an angel now?

Reality hit, melting the crossness that had helped to dull the pain, and I started to cry. I think I cried all night, until the dawn light filtered through my window, but there was no one to listen. I fell asleep eventually, and when I woke there was still no one there.

* * *

IT WAS TWO DAYS LATER before I dared to walk along the sand again. I had decided I would never go back there unless my dad came home, but the seagulls called out to me with such a haunting melody that I just had to go.

Mrs. Mac had managed to make some toast that morning. I put on my own butter and it dripped down onto my chin so that it felt all greasy. I rubbed it with my sleeve but that spread the grease all over my face. Mrs. Mac didn’t seem to notice. I went right up to her but she just stared at me as if I wasn’t there, and that was when I heard the seagulls calling and decided to go outside.

The tide was in today, covering the sand and almost lapping right up to our row of cottages. In some places, triangular chunks of the grass-covered shore had dropped into the water in huge lumps, so I shied away from the edge. My dad once told me that the sea was trying to eat up the land and if I wasn’t careful it would gobble me up, too. I stopped in my tracks. Now it seemed to me that he was the one who had been gobbled up. The sadness inside me swelled and I couldn’t find the lump of crossness that held it at bay. It was harder to find it when I was on my own, so I started walking again, very quickly, with the wind in my face. I thought that perhaps the wind would blow my sadness away.

It was where the grass gave way to a small sandy beach that I saw it, lying motionless on a bed of seashells, half in and half out of the sea. I stopped for a moment, shading my eyes with my hand to cut the glare of the sun on the water. It must be a seal, I thought, washed up by the tide. We’d had one of those in Jenny Brown’s Bay before. My heart began to race as I drew closer. It was too big to be a seal. A person, it had to be a person. Could it be...? Could it really be my dad, lying there on the shore? My heart beat very hard and the breath refused to leave my body, for my dad was lying there on the sand and I had to help him.

It wasn’t my dad, though, it was Daffyd; he had come home at last but it was too late. His face was so swollen and gray that he didn’t look like Daffyd at all. He looked like the seal we saw last year, cold and solid and empty. I hoped my dad wasn’t with him. I didn’t want my dad to look like that—ugly and dead.

Tears welled in my eyes but I found my crossness as I stared at poor Daffyd’s swollen face, turning my tears into anger again. And then I just ran and ran toward home, looking neither left nor right in case I saw my dad there, too. I didn’t want him to be like Daffyd. If my dad had to be dead, then I wanted him to be an angel because angels can look after you.

My dad never did come back to look after me.

CHAPTER FOUR

I DIDN’T GO TO DAFFYD’S funeral....

After I told everyone I’d found him, Mr. and Mrs. Mac, Ted and Sam the postman—he was the first person to know because I saw him as I ran toward our row of cottages—things went mad. I don’t think anyone really remembered about me after that.

They brought the coffin to the Macs’ cottage and it sat right there on the table. Shiny gleaming wood with curvy golden handles; it seemed a shame to me to put it in the ground. I saw it arrive from my hiding place behind Mrs. Mac’s blue sofa but I didn’t stay there for long. All I could think about was Daffyd, lying inside it, a solid gray swollen lump with a face that was Daffyd’s and yet nothing like Daffy at all. We used to laugh a lot, me and Daffyd. He called me his little sister. Now he would never laugh again.

I couldn’t find my crossness that day so I went to our cottage and curled up in a ball in my bedroom until I got too hungry to stay there. The bread in our kitchen was hard and moldy so I sneaked next door again. That was when I heard them.

The kitchen door was slightly ajar, so I peered through the crack to see Ted and Mrs. Mac. He had one hand on her shoulder and she was shaking all over.

“I can’t go on, Ted,” she said with tears in her voice.

He patted her awkwardly, as one would a dog.

“Now, come on, Mary, time heals all and there’s the child to think of.”

She looked up at him, her face all puffy and pale. Did everyone keep changing? I wondered. Did no one ever stay the same?

“But I can’t stand to see her, Ted,” she cried. “All I can see is Mad Mick’s eyes in her face, and I can’t forget what he’s done.”

“But she’s just a child, Mary.” Ted’s voice was very, very sad. “Then you take her, Ted,” she said in a low, angry tone. “I’ve got too much pain in me to care where she goes.”

I knew then that eventually they would send me away. It seemed that my world would keep on changing. But I liked having my dad’s eyes.

* * *

THE CHURCH MUSIC WAS heavy and slow. I thought Daffyd would have liked something much more jolly, for everyone to sing to. I sat behind a tall gravestone and waited for all the people to file into the church. I waited for my dad. If he was an angel now, then surely he would come to his friend Daffyd’s funeral.

He didn’t come that day, though, so when everyone came outside again, I headed home to sneak some cakes and sandwiches from the plates that were laid out in Mrs. Mac’s front room. It was the first time in days that I was able to eat my fill, and my stomach felt so sore that I climbed up the stairs to my own cold bedroom and finally slept.

I felt a bit better when I woke—the hunger pains no longer gnawed at my stomach—so I went next door to see if Mrs. Mac had changed back into herself yet.

I hadn’t really minded not having a mother up until then, for Mrs. Mac had always been like a mother to me. Now, when she looked at me with sad, vacant eyes, vague memories kept coming back, of glossy brown hair, a merry smile and the sweet scent of summer flowers—memories of the mother I hardly knew. She’d gone away, too. Perhaps it was my fault that everyone left.

My dad had been upset—I remember that. He yelled at her when she ran from the house in her high-heeled shoes. They went tippety-tap on the concrete path, then her laughter was lost in the roar of an engine. He cried when she’d gone, and I cried, too, because he was sad. I had Mrs. Mac, though, and my dad, so I soon forgot my mother. Suddenly it seemed as if she’d left just yesterday. Maybe she’d come back to look after me now. I asked Ted about it when he came to find me, but he shook his head slowly.

“Oh, Elsa,” he groaned. “You poor little mite.”

Was that what I was now, a poor little mite?

“What’s a mite, Ted?” I asked.

He lifted me up very high, swinging me around and around and laughing too loudly, but he didn’t answer my question.

“Let’s go see if Mrs. Mac will clean you,” he said. “You look as if you haven’t had a bath in days.”

I felt a bit better. Perhaps Ted would take care of me now.

* * *

I HAD ONLY JUST STARTED school that autumn. I liked my class and my teacher, Mrs. Meeks, and I liked learning things. But no one had told me to go to school since my dad went away. I wondered if I should go by myself, but I wasn’t sure of the way, so I took long walks on the shore instead.

Mrs. Mac ignored me most of the time, so I stopped trying to sit on her knee. She thought I had my father’s eyes and she didn’t like him anymore, so she must not like me, either. Sometimes she tried to be nice, but even when she spoke to me she never looked into my eyes. I searched for my lump of crossness when she did that, to hide the ache inside me that wouldn’t go away.

One day I heard her talking to Mr. Mac.

“The authorities will have to take her,” she said. “I can’t go on like this.”

That was when I decided to go and ask Ted if I could live with him.

A narrow lane led along the shore to our row of cottages, so close to the sea that in high tide the water lapped right up to it. Ted’s house was at the other end, higher up on a rocky incline. It was small and white with twinkling windows—a clean and friendly house, I thought, as I walked quickly toward its neat red door.

A slim blonde woman answered my knock. I had seen her before in the village with Ted, and she was at Daffyd’s funeral. Mrs. Mac called her “the city girl.” I don’t think she liked her very much.

“Hello,” she said in a high, bright voice. “I’m Victoria. How can I help you?”

My heart beat hard inside my chest.

“Is Ted here?”

Her face darkened and a shadow came into her pale eyes. “Ted’s busy, I’m afraid, Elsa.”

I stared at the floor, squirming as I realized that I was wearing mismatched shoes. I had forgotten that Ted had someone.

“I know Ted’s been watching out for you, but...well...”

Her eyes were kind but her whole body was tight and her mouth was a thin line.

“Look, dear...” Her words died out as his huge shape appeared behind her, towering over her slight frame. Now, I thought with a lurch of joy, everything would be all right.

“Come inside, lass,” he urged, but there was worry in his eyes, and he kept glancing down at Victoria’s smooth blond head as if he was afraid of her. That was a silly idea. How could anyone so big be afraid of someone so small?

She took hold of my arm—I wanted to pull away but I didn’t—and made me sit down on a sofa that was much too big for the cramped room. It was pale cream with pink flowers all over, and I’m sure it would have been soft and comfy if it hadn’t been covered in plastic.

“Would you like some lemonade?” she asked.

I shook my head and gritted my teeth, trying to say the words I had rehearsed. They wouldn’t come, though, so I sat quietly, twisting my feet together to hide my shoes.

Ted wasn’t like himself; he looked sad and distant.

Please don’t let him change, too, I said to myself, searching deep down for my lump of crossness so I wouldn’t cry. Why didn’t she go away and let me talk to Ted by myself?

“Ted,” she ordered, “come and help me make some tea.” Her voice was brittle, like a thin piece of glass. Then she turned to me with a bright, empty smile. “Are you sure you won’t have some lemonade, Elsa? Or we have orange juice?”

Ted grinned uneasily as he followed Victoria out of the room, but I just frowned.

I could hear their voices through a crack in the door. I pressed my ear up close to listen.

“You’ll have to tell her, Ted.”

Victoria spoke in the hushed whisper that all adults used when they didn’t want kids to hear, so I listened even harder, knowing they were about to say something bad.

“But what will she do? She has no one,” Ted argued. “She relies on me.”

“That’s not the point. The longer you leave it, the worse it’ll get and the more she’ll depend on you. She’ll be wanting to come live with us next.”

“Well...I suppose...”

Ted’s voice was wavering and I knew all was lost. It seemed that it was possible for a small person to be the boss of a big one after all. My crossness hardened into something sharp and painful.

“She needs proper care by people who know what they’re doing. Anyone can see the poor kid has problems. Frankly, I’m not surprised, living all alone with that Mad Mick Malone. The authorities will—”

I burst through the door, letting it bang against the wall, screaming as loudly as I could, so loudly that Ted’s face went white. Victoria gave him an “I told you so” look and pursed her lips. She reached out to grab me, but I broke free, sprinting from the house into the lonely comfort of the bay.

It was easy to get away from Ted—by the time he’d put on his shoes I was already way out along the shingle beach. I didn’t walk onto the sand, even though I really wanted to, because that would have left footprints for them to follow. I found a place behind an old wooden jetty where no one could see me.

If they sent me away from this place, I suddenly realized, there would never be any footprints to follow again. So if my dad came back, how could he ever find me? I would just lie down here on the shore, I decided, and go to sleep forever and ever. I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my face into the sand.

I heard Ted’s feet running and I heard him shout but I ignored him, digging into the sand, listening to the seagulls and trying not to cry. When I opened my eyes again, a huge black-headed gull had landed close by, staring at me with beady yellow eyes. It stepped cautiously toward me, head leaning to one side, beak half-open.

“They want to send me away, bird,” I whispered.

It took a step closer and I reached out my hand.

“There you are,” Ted shouted.

The seagull, my friend, flapped its wings and flew off, and the crossness took over. I screamed and started to run, but Ted pinned me down.

“There, there, lass,” he murmured. “Let it all out.”

We sat like that for a very long time, until all my sobs were cried out. When they turned into whimpers and my tears dried, he tilted my chin and looked into my eyes.

“All everyone wants is the best for you, Elsa.”

I knew that wasn’t true. Mrs. Mac didn’t, and even if Ted did, Victoria wouldn’t let him.

“You have to be with people who can look after you properly,” he told me in a gentle voice.

“But when my dad comes back...” I began.

He shook his head slowly. “I’m sorry, Elsa, but they’ve found him. I’m afraid your dad will never come back to you now.”

CHAPTER FIVE

EIGHT-YEAR-OLD BRYN SNIFFED loudly and ran his nose across his sleeve, looking cautiously around to make sure that Mrs. Dibble hadn’t seen him. Mrs. Dibble was not impressed by children who forgot to use a tissue, and he didn’t want to miss out on ice cream for tea. They always had ice cream when a new child came.

All in all he didn’t really mind Mrs. Dibble. She ruled Appletree House with a rod of iron, but Bryn could usually get around her. Over the past three years he’d learned that a smile and a sorry went a long way. So did a pleasant smile, and it always helped settle in the new arrivals. The girl who was coming today, though, was supposed to have problems. He knew that because he’d overheard Mrs. Dibble and Sarah, the social worker, talking about her. They’d used words like traumatized, disturbed, hostile and antisocial.

Some of the children who came here were frightened and shy, and others were loud, rough and outspoken. “Gutterkids” he’d heard Mrs. Dibble call them. Disturbed and hostile were different kinds of words, though, and what exactly did traumatized mean? He wondered how old she was, imagining a teenager. Bryn liked to be responsible for helping the new kids settle in, but since he was only eight, maybe this time it wouldn’t be possible.

He headed for the door. It was hours until teatime so he might as well go play on the new swing in the oak tree that Bob, the gardener and handyman, had put there especially for him. Bryn had a way of getting people to do things like that.

* * *

FROM THE WINDOW OF HER office, Martha Dibble watched the little boy with the unruly dark hair and bright smile. She always tried not to get too involved with the children in her care, but with Bryn Evans it was difficult not to. He sniffed, wiping his nose on his sleeve, and she raised her eyebrows, knowing she should reprimand him. It was important to stay in control, as most of the children who came to Appletree were desperately lacking in parental guidance. She half rose and then sat down again, thinking better of it. If she took away Bryn’s ice cream, he’d look at her with those huge brown eyes, and with his ever-ready “sorry, Miss” he’d make her feel like the dragon they all said she was. Bryn ran off toward the garden and with a deep sigh she went back to the file she was reading. Maybe she was going soft in her old age. Of all the children who’d passed through Appletree over the past decade, Martha decided, narrowing her eyes to decipher the social worker’s scrawled handwriting, this child sounded as if she was going to be one of the worst. Words like hostile and emotionally disturbed painted a grim picture of a little girl who’d just turned six. Discipline and routine usually worked, though—Martha had found that they made children feel more secure. Lack of security was the root of most of their problems.

She sighed again and gazed out the window. At the moment, unfortunately, the security of Appletree House itself hung in the balance. Funding was changing and the modern consensus was to move children into more family-oriented environments, such as foster homes. But many of the kids at Appletree were from difficult backgrounds, and they needed more expert care. In Martha’s opinion, institutions such as hers fit the bill perfectly, combining the discipline of school with a secure home environment and professional care. Then there were children such as Bryn—well-adjusted, loving kids who’d come to Appletree because they had no one to take care of them. He might have benefited from being placed in foster care at first, but Appletree was his home now. And he was growing into a normal, caring, intelligent young man with a promising future ahead of him.

Martha looked out over the garden she’d grown to love so much. There had been talk of closing the school down altogether. It shouldn’t really affect her, of course, for she was retiring soon, but the large gray stone house had become a home to her over the past ten years, and she felt a huge responsibility to the children in her care. She closed the file, feeling unusually dispirited. In a way, she supposed, she was not unlike those children. Perhaps she, too, needed the discipline and security of Appletree.

* * *

BRYN HEARD THE TEA GONG boom as he whizzed through the air, perched on a bar at the end of a thick brown rope. He threw back his head to feel the wind in his face one last time, then pulled at the rope to slow it down, remembering that the new kid was coming this afternoon. He was on the ground before it stopped, stumbling to keep his feet, then racing across the front lawn toward the curved stone steps, taking them two at a time. The heavy oak door was already open, and children were wandering in from the garden, laughing and giggling and messing around.

“Hiya, Bryn,” gurgled little Kelly Watts. He ruffled her short dark hair and grinned.

“Hiya, Kelly.”

* * *

“ORDER!” MRS. DIBBLE YELLED, and they quickly organized themselves into a line, filing through to wash their hands and tidy up for tea, feet clomping on the shiny wooden floor.

Martha Dibble stood, as usual, in the hallway, watching them pass through with all-seeing eyes. God help a child who attempted to enter the dining room with grubby hands or untidy clothes—Bryn was probably the worst—and the most likely to get away with it. No matter how much he combed his floppy black hair, it always looked tangled, and his face, darkly tanned from a summer of sunshine, seemed to attract dirt like metal to a magnet. He spit on his hands and rubbed his cheeks as he approached the door, probably the only child in the room deliberately trying to catch Martha’s steely glare. She peered at him through her dark-rimmed glasses. He grinned, his brown eyes glowing, and despite herself, she smiled back.

Martha always liked to wait until everyone was seated around their tables before introducing a new arrival at Appletree. She firmly believed that the very act of sitting down and eating together with their future companions would make them feel more immediately at home.

* * *

BRYN TOYED WITH HIS FOOD, making patterns in his mashed potatoes, one eye fixed on the door. Lots of the children who came to Appletree were emotionally disturbed—at least they were if that meant they cried a lot—so maybe this kid wouldn’t be so bad, after all. He cut off a bit of sausage, dipped it in sauce and popped it into his mouth, biting into its hot tasty center. Hostile, though, now that was another matter.

But as soon as he saw her, Bryn realized why all those words had been used to describe her. She was only five or six, but her whole being bristled with ferocity. Mrs. Dibble held her arm, and her tight expression showed just how much trouble the little girl must have caused.

“Stay still, dear,” she said sternly as the child tried to wriggle from her grasp. The new arrival ignored her, snarling like a lion cub, and Bryn’s heart turned over. He could feel her unhappiness, her anger.

“This is Elsa May Malone, children,” Mrs. Dibble announced with a forced smile. “I hope that you will all make her feel very welcome.”

“It’ll take more than us to make her feel welcome,” Timmy Platt giggled. He was a chubby, spotty-faced boy who’d been at Appletree for about six months.

Bryn scowled at Timmy and stepped determinedly forward.

“Hello,” he said. “I’m Bryn.”

Mrs. Dibble smiled gratefully and beckoned him forward, but the little girl glowered at him with such malice that he froze. Her fierce amber eyes, sparkling with green and gold, stared out at him defiantly, her delicate face framed by a curly cloud of sun-bleached brown hair. She really did look like a lion cub, he decided, trapped and frightened, fighting for her life.

“I’m Bryn,” he repeated.

She scowled, poising herself to run.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Mrs. Dibble scolded, grabbing her arm again. The little girl twisted and turned, then stood still, bristling with anger at the entire universe.

“We have ice cream,” Bryn said, holding out his hand. She clasped hers tightly together against her chest, defying him to come closer.

“Come on,” he urged. “You can sit next to me.”

Martha Dibble looked on in amazement as Elsa followed Bryn to their table, drawing her chair very close to his as if to shut out everyone else in the room.

“It was as though they made some kind of instant connection,” Martha later told the social worker, reflecting on the moment when the openhearted little boy had somehow managed to get through to a child who had been branded totally uncommunicative by all the experts in child welfare.

The Appletree staff had been warned that Elsa was emotionally unstable, having been deeply traumatized by her father’s death. Her stay at Appletree was supposed to be a brief stopgap between the foster home that had been unable to deal with her and a unit that would provide more specialized care. After Elsa’s interaction with Bryn, however, Martha managed to persuade Social Services to rethink their plan, insisting that the girl should be allowed to stay for at least a little longer.

Before she met Bryn, Elsa had been pronounced a danger to herself, snarling and refusing to eat, or just sitting in a corner staring into space, but from the moment she followed the dark-haired, warmhearted boy across the dining room to sit at his side and eat ice cream, everything changed. She still rarely spoke, only when absolutely necessary, but she followed Bryn Evans like a shadow, keeping to herself, watching him play and dutifully doing her schoolwork.

He talked to her all the time, telling her anything that came into his head, from the feelings he’d gone through when both his parents were killed in a car crash to his love of drawing and painting and his longing for a dog of his own. It seemed as if she knew every little thing about him, but let out nothing of herself. He didn’t know where she was from, why she came to Appletree or even her likes and dislikes. But somehow none of that mattered to him as long as she was there. The feelings she had raised in him all those months ago, when he first saw her in the dining room, were still as strong as ever.

She was just his Elsa, no more or less than that. Now and forever.

CHAPTER SIX

BEFORE I CAME TO APPLETREE, first there was my dad’s funeral. Mr. and Mrs. Mac didn’t go and I stood beside Ted, holding on very tightly to his hand. Victoria stood on his other side, rigid and still. There wasn’t much singing and my dad’s coffin didn’t have shiny brass handles like Daffyd’s. I hoped he didn’t look like Daffyd, swollen and gray, and I cried because he wasn’t an angel after all.

That was the last time I cried because my crossness came to soak up the tears. Being angry felt better than being sad, so I clung to it as tightly as I could.

I knew they were going to send me away. Victoria wouldn’t let me stay with Ted, and Mr. and Mrs. Mac didn’t like me anymore, so a lady came from somewhere called the authorities. Her name was Susan and she had very shiny hair. I didn’t like her much, but then again I didn’t like anyone anymore, so I just stopped talking and tried to build a wall around me.

* * *

I DON’T REMEMBER MUCH about the first place they sent me to. There was a tall smiley man, who tried to be nice, but I wouldn’t talk to him. And a big boy who pinched me when no one could see, but he couldn’t make me cry. And then they sent me somewhere else. “Somewhere better equipped to deal with you,” Susan said.

She came for me. I dug in my heels and refused to go, but the tall man picked me up and put me in Sarah’s car. She kept talking to me on the drive, but I stared out the window, wishing and wishing that everything could be like it used to. Oh, why couldn’t my dad have been an angel?

* * *

A LADY WITH GRAY HAIR and gray eyes dragged me through a hallway. I stomped on the wooden floor. I liked the sound, so I stomped even harder.

“Shush, child,” she said. “We don’t like rowdy children here.”

There were lots of tables and a sea of faces all staring at me, smiling and whispering. I wanted to go home so much, home to how things used to be.

“This, children,” announced the gray lady, “is Elsa May Malone. I hope you will all make her very welcome.”

I knew they wouldn’t. No one made me welcome anymore, for no one liked me. I closed my eyes and searched for my lump of crossness, the anger that kept any other emotion away. I didn’t care... I didn’t care... I didn’t care. When I opened them again, a boy stood in front of me. His eyes were very warm and he smiled at me.

“I’m Bryn,” he said.

I turned to run away but the gray lady grabbed my arm.

He repeated his name, holding out his hand. It was slim and brown and he held it very straight. I wanted to take it but my crossness wouldn’t let me, so I pulled away, clutching my hands tightly against my chest.

“We have ice cream,” he said, turning away. “You can sit next to me.”

The boy’s words went around and around inside my head. I had somewhere to sit, someone who wanted me to sit with him. I followed him slowly, clinging to him like a shadow. Everyone smiled at him, even the gray lady they called Mrs. Dibble, and I sat right beside him and ate ice cream. Here, I decided, is where I’m going to stay.

* * *

BRYN NEVER ASKED ME anything about myself.

“You can tell me when you’re ready, Emm,” he told me. He always called me Emm because of my initials, Elsa May Malone.

I had always wanted a dog, and we often talked about that.

“We’ll have a big yellow one like this,” he promised, showing me some pictures he had printed off the computer—Bryn was good at working the computer. “When we’re all grown-up, we’ll have a golden retriever.”

I nodded, smiling for the first time in ages because Bryn still wanted to be with me when we were grown-ups, and because we were going to get a dog.

My crossness faded just a little, and I decided to follow him always. I was scared, though, because Bryn didn’t know that everyone close to me eventually changed into something horrid. I didn’t want my Bryn to change and I couldn’t tell him about my fears. Perhaps if I didn’t let him all the way into my life, if he didn’t know me well enough, then he would stay the same.

At Appletree we were all in the same class, from five-year-olds right up to the big kids who would soon be moving on. I wanted to know where they moved on to, but I didn’t ask.

Bryn was nine years old; he had his birthday the day after I came to Appletree. So would he move on soon? I wondered. The thought ate at me like a disease, filling my dreams. If only I could ask him. I tried, I really tried, but the anger inside me got in the way of my tongue. When the social worker tried to make me talk, sometimes my words came out in a scream. But I never screamed when Bryn was there. He was my friend. My friend. I hugged that thought close to me, even though I knew we could never be proper friends. So I just listened to the things he said, hardly ever responding but hanging on to his every word so I could remember them later when I was alone in my bed.

He looked at me sometimes with a hurt expression, but I knew holding back was the only way to keep things as they were. It was all a waste of time, though, for eventually it wasn’t Bryn who changed, but my whole world.

* * *

MRS. DIBBLE CALLED US to the dining room midmorning. We were in class, and Bryn was helping me cut out pictures from the computer and stick them in a book. The heading on the front of it was Things I Love, but the only pictures I wanted to put in it were of dogs. Dogs loved you but never asked questions, Bryn said, and nothing in my life was more certain than the fact that one day I would have a dog of my own. Bryn felt the same way. And he wanted the same dog as me.

“Children!”

Mrs. Dibble banged on the table with a spoon and we all looked up.

“Into the dining room now, please.”

We filed through cautiously, aware of the strained look on her gray face and the faint tremble in her high-pitched voice.

When she told us, when she made the announcement that was to change all our lives, I felt sick. For the first time ever I broke my own rule, taking hold of Bryn’s hand and curling my fingers around his. He held them very tightly as the news sank in. Appletree House was shutting down, and we would all be moving on to new places. But we mustn’t worry, Mrs. Dibble said. They would be very nice homes.

Where was my anger? I searched my soul for it, but all I could find was sorrow. Suddenly, out of the blue, my world was tumbling down yet again. Was it my fault, then? Was it because I had grown to like this place?

I didn’t want to face the idea that we would have to be parted, so I tried to imagine us moving on together, all the children from Appletree House, and even Mrs. Dibble.

I had come to rely on the gray lady’s firm rule. “Harsh but fair,” Bryn said, and that was true enough. At least it had been until now. There was nothing fair about taking away our home. Bryn stuck up for her, though. He said it wasn’t her fault. He must have been right, for on that last morning she looked like a ghost who had lost its way. She walked quickly out of the room as soon as she’d spoken to us. I can’t remember what she said.

Susan, the social worker with the shiny straight hair, stood at the end of the long dining room, right where I’d stood all those months ago. She had a clipboard in her hand—Susan liked carrying clipboards. I think it made her feel important. Mrs. Dibble didn’t need anything to make her feel that way.

“These are unfortunate circumstances, children,” Susan told us. “I have the unenviable task of informing you all where you’ll be moving and I want you to know that we’re all trying to do our very best for you.”

I felt Bryn quiver beside me. I wanted to take hold of his hand again, but I didn’t.

“Billy Sharp, you—” she squinted at her clipboard “—will go to Long Meadows. It’s a nice family house near Lancaster, a place for older children. Four of you are moving there.”

She glanced at her clipboard again.

“Ashley Gibb, Tom Bradley and...”

My heart wrenched, sensing something bad that I was still unaware of.

“The fourth lucky child going to such a nice place will be...” She looked straight at me.

“Bryn Evans.”

All the anger inside me that had faded over the past two years came rushing back. My fingers found Bryn’s again and held on so tightly that no one would ever be able to pull them away. But of course they did.

I don’t remember much about the day after that. I don’t remember Susan telling me where I was going because, without Bryn, I didn’t care. When he was driven away in a big blue car with the three other children, I thought I would probably die. I wanted to die so much, just close my eyes and join my father and Daffyd in whatever place they were.

Bryn’s face was pressed against the window. I think he was crying, but I couldn’t cry. I watched until the car became a pale blur in the distance and then disappeared altogether, and I wrapped my arms around myself, desperately searching for the familiar crossness that fought off my pain and loneliness.

“Come on, Elsa.” That was Mrs. Dibble’s voice. I didn’t need to look at her to know she was choking on her tears. “Be strong. There’s nothing any of us can do to stop this. Life goes on, no matter what we do.”

Her interruption stopped me from going over the edge and being like I used to be when I first came to Appletree. Instead I just became hollow and empty inside.

* * *

I DIDN’T TAKE MUCH NOTICE of the place they sent me to at first. There was a small plump woman named Helen with curly hair and kind eyes—she tried to be friends with me but I didn’t let her. One thing she told me sank in, though. She must have known how much I liked Bryn because she talked to me about him.

“You needed to be in our small unit, here at Braymore,” she said gently, touching my hand. I pulled it sharply away.

“And the older ones had to go into a different environment.”

I stared at my shoes.

“Now you have two choices....”

I started to hum.

“Either you can be reclusive and difficult, like you were when you first went to Appletree, or you can stay quiet, keep to yourself, but watch and learn. Then, one day, when you’re older and you meet your friend again—as you surely will if you’re really so fond of each other—you’ll have become a bright, intelligent girl, one he will be proud to know.”

That may have been one of the most important things anyone ever said to me. From that day on, I focused my every thought on making Bryn proud. I remained aloof from the other children, unapproachable, locked in my own private world, and my insecurities still plagued me, but I learned and thrived and waited for the day Bryn would see the new me.

* * *

I WAS TWELVE YEARS OLD WHEN they moved me again, and to my own surprise, I felt sorry to leave Braymore. I hadn’t noticed the austere stone house with its small paned windows becoming a home to me, but it truly felt as if I was leaving home on the morning that I stood in the dark hallway with my battered suitcase.

I felt fear deep inside, fear of an unknown future, and the hard knot that I used to call my crossness pressed against my rib cage. It was strange to feel that raw anger again, the fierce, painful lump that made me want to strike out at the rest of the world. Strange and terrifying, for I knew it could still take me over if I let it.

Helen took my face between her palms.

“Good luck, Elsa,” she said. “I hope you’ll find your friend again. And he will be proud of you, believe me.”

That was one of the golden moments in my life. For the first time I could make someone proud, and now all I had to do was find him. In the end, it was easier than I thought.

I stepped into the social worker’s long red car and sat with my suitcase on my knees.

Dermot, the young man who had taken Susan’s place, grinned at me.

“Don’t look so worried,” he said. “The place you’re going is very nice, and you’ll settle in soon.”

I wanted to ask why they hadn’t let me stay at Braymore, but as usual, my mouth dried up and the words wouldn’t come. He answered my unasked question anyway.

“You’re too old to be at Braymore now. It’s for younger children. At the new home you’ll be able to take your school exams and even go on to college if you want. The world is your oyster, Elsa May Malone.”

It didn’t feel like an oyster, it felt like a gloppy pudding with no sides and no form.

The new home was modern, white and stark. I thought it looked cold and unwelcoming after Braymore, and I held the handle of my suitcase so tightly that my hand hurt. I wanted it to hurt, for it filled the emptiness inside me and stopped the anger from coming back. I had to keep the crossness away if I wanted to make Bryn proud. He wouldn’t like a girl who screamed with anger at the whole wide world.

There were children playing on a green lawn beside the house. They laughed and shouted and ran, throwing balls to each other and swinging very high from a huge old tree. Two girls sat side by side, writing in blue exercise books and giggling. They glanced at me and glanced away as if I was invisible. I was so alone and afraid that the breath became stuck in my chest and dizziness clouded my vision.

Then I heard a familiar voice, the dear familiar voice that had haunted my dreams for so long.

CHAPTER SEVEN

WHEN BRYN FIRST ARRIVED at Long Meadows, he didn’t want to like it there. He wanted to stay safe in the familiarity of Appletree, with Mrs. Dibble and all his friends—especially Elsa.

Elsa. She preyed on his mind all the time. Ever since that first day at Appletree, when she’d stood there in front of him, a snarling, spitting lion cub, he had somehow felt she was his responsibility. It was up to him to help her overcome whatever demons drove her into the sad and lonely space that no one else could enter. And he had come so close to getting there. The day before Mrs. Dibble announced that Appletree would be closing, Elsa had started to talk to him—real words, not just her usual “yes” or “no.” She had even begun to tell him about a place she loved, Jenny Brown’s Bay, named after a woman who’d lived there hundreds of years ago. It had taken more than two years for Elsa to really trust him, and then they’d been torn apart. She would probably end up just like she was when he first saw her in the dining hall at Appletree.

Tears welled in his eyes and he tightened his fists. Boys didn’t cry; his father had taught him that. Boys faced up to their responsibilities. As the car slid to a halt, memories of his father came back to him—a tall, strict imposing, man. And his mother...his mother was a dreamer, an artist who lived in an airy-fairy world. She had dark hair and eyes, like him, and was slightly built. Was he a dreamer, too?

The car door opened and the sun streamed in, sun that would stay with Bryn for his entire time at Long Meadows, even when the rain came down.

The building was white and freshly painted, with wooden window frames and a deep green front door. It opened as the children approached, revealing a plump, motherly woman with the biggest smile Bryn had ever seen.

“Hello, children,” she welcomed them. “Lunch is ready. After that I’ll get someone to show you around.”

Her voice held the soft lilt of Wales, Bryn’s home country. It made him feel comfortable and more relaxed than he’d been since they’d dragged Elsa away from him. She’d looked so dejected as they drove off, a small, lonely figure with none of her fierceness showing at all. What would happen to her now? What would she do without him?

“Come on, Bryn,” urged Billy Sharp, patting him on the back. “Stop mooning over that crazy Elsa, you’re well rid of her anyway. Let’s go see our new home.”

“He’s right, you know,” added Ashley.

She looked at him with a knowing expression, gazing down from her lofty height. He suddenly felt uncomfortable under her close scrutiny.

“But she doesn’t have anyone else,” he mumbled. “And she’s not crazy, she’s scared.”

“We’re all scared, but we don’t act like her,” Ashley said, an angry edge in her voice.

Billy pulled a face. “You’re just jealous, Ash.”

“Now really, children.”

The plump lady scowled at them, revealing a hidden glimpse of steel.

All four children spoke in unison. “Sorry, Mrs....”

“Evans,” she finished. “Where are your manners? We don’t put up with bickering at Long Meadows.”

“My name is Evans, too,” Bryn chirped, and she smiled again, placing a hand on his head.

“Bryn Evans, I believe,” she said, surveying the four pairs of eyes that stared cautiously back at her. “And you three must be Ashley, Tom and Billy. Now tell me which of you is which.”

That introduction set the tone for life at Long Meadows. Bronwen Evans was not unlike Martha Dibble—strict but fair—yet she had a gentleness about her that Martha lacked, a motherly side that made every child feel cared for. Bryn wished again and again that Elsa could be here. She would like Mrs. Evans.

At Appletree, the children had slept in large rooms with five or six beds, but here they were just two to a room. He was sharing with Tom Bradley, and he was glad about that. Billy Sharpe, with his bright red hair and equally loud character, would have driven him mad. Tom was slightly built and fair, quiet and thoughtful—an easy companion.

On that first night, Bryn lay awake in his narrow bed, listening to his roommate’s rhythmic breathing, his mind full of Elsa. Oh, how he worried about her. Perhaps he could write or email, but he didn’t know where they’d sent her. Why hadn’t he asked? It had all happened so suddenly. One minute Mrs. Dibble was making the announcement; the next they were all ushered off to pack. The social worker told them that these things were best done quickly, with no time for regrets, but Bryn thought they’d definitely gotten that wrong. If they’d been given more time, he could have thought it through, talked to Elsa about it. It wasn’t so bad for him. He was eleven, but she was only eight years old—just a little kid. A frightened little kid no one understood except for him.

The moon rose, filtering through his window and bringing with it the insecurities of the night. He closed his eyes tightly, remembering his father’s firm, deep voice.

“Men don’t cry, lad. Be strong and brave.”

Those words had been hammered into him since birth. In his father’s world, a soldier’s world, men were supposed to be tough and hard. He was a captain in the army—always in charge. No matter what situation arose, his father was there, leading the way. Until he met one situation he couldn’t control.

Bryn’s mother was his father’s only weakness. Sasha Evans—always in a dream, a smile lighting up her elfin features, always with a paintbrush or piece of charcoal in her hand. Bryn’s father met her when he was stationed in Wales. She was trying to make a living as an artist “and doing very badly,” she had admitted to her son, laughing. Bryn remembered her so well—remembered her sweetness and the love that filled their house on the army base. His father instilled his principles into his five-year-old son—to be strong, to take charge, to never show weakness.

They had just moved to a new base on the day that changed Bryn’s life forever. Both his parents had dropped him off at his new school, and his father had waited in the car while his mother took him inside. She had hugged him goodbye and planted a kiss on his cheek—the last kiss she would ever give him.

Bryn buried his face in his pillow as the memories flooded in, raw and painful. He choked back tears as his father’s voice rang out inside his head.

“You have to be brave, lad. Face your problems full on and sort them out.”

But some problems were just too big. Even his brave and stalwart father couldn’t sort out the problems that beset him on that fateful day.

Bryn’s parents had met a truck head-on in a narrow lane. They’d both died on impact.

Bryn opened his eyes and looked out at the moon. The accident was six years ago now, but it felt as if it was yesterday. He sat up, forcing himself back into the present again; the insecurity of moving to a new place must have brought back the memories, he decided, his thoughts turning to Elsa. Tomorrow he’d ask Mrs. Evans if she knew where they’d sent her. Then he’d write her a letter every week, just to let her know she wasn’t alone.

With that idea firmly fixed inside his head, he lay down and pulled his duvet around his chin.

“You okay?” Tom whispered from across the room.

Bryn smiled in the darkness, watching moonlight flit across the ceiling.

“Yes,” he said determinedly, imagining his father’s pride. “I am...now.”

“Night, then.”

“Night, Tom,” he echoed.

Bryn’s plan to find Elsa did not materialize as easily as he’d hoped. After breakfast the next morning, he went off to find Mrs. Evans. She listened patiently to his plea, but then she evaded his request.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she promised.

Hours rolled into days.

“I’m working on it,” she told Bryn.

When weeks had passed, Bryn realized that Mrs. Evans was never going to give him Elsa’s address. His memories of the troubled little girl were all he had left, and Elsa was alone again, facing her demons with no one to help her.

“One day, Elsa,” he whispered to himself. “One day, I’ll come looking for you. I won’t give up until I find you.”

* * *

AT LONG MEADOWS, the children went to school in town, and soon Bryn’s life became a blur—meeting new people, learning new things, writing exams. Years slipped by, happy, fulfilled years. Bryn came to see that there was much more of his mother in him than he’d thought. Animals and painting became his passions, one as important as the other.

He’d explore the woods around Long Meadows, sometimes bringing back injured creatures. Mrs. Evans allowed him to keep the animals in a shed at the far end of the garden. There he would care for them religiously until they either recovered enough to be freed again in the sprawling forest, or died and were buried beneath his favorite tree. Mrs. Evans encouraged him to take out library books and find websites about how to feed and treat wild animals. The local vet, Mike Barber, was always ready to help. “We don’t charge for wild animals,” he would say when Bryn asked how much the treatment cost.

* * *

WHEN BRYN HAD BEEN AT Long Meadows for about a year, his solitary wanderings eventually led him through the woodland and the fields beyond to the coast, where the sea glistened in a silver strip.

He would sit there for hours, watching the seabirds and painting their glorious flight across the changeable sky—sometimes gray, wild and angry, and sometimes so calm and starkly beautiful that it hurt his heart.

When Bronwen Evans first saw his paintings, she stared at them for a while, then she recited some lines from a poem.

A sight so wide it fills the eyes, its vast

horizon meets a sky that stretches to infinity.

That holds my heart. That sets me free.

Timeless echoes in my ears; a haunting melody, ten thousand sea birds cry their tears to a wild and restless sea.

* * *

Bryn listened to the words in awe.

“That’s lovely,” he said. “Do you know any more?”

She pursed her lips, frowning slightly.

“I can’t remember all of it, but let me think...”

For a moment, she furrowed her brow, concentrating, then her face lit up and she looked at him in triumph.

But when it sparkles, shimmering sands,

its transient beauty a promised land, it sings another song to me, of peacefulness and harmony.

Her voice trailed off, and she sighed.

“That’s all I can remember, I’m afraid. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? I’ll see if I can find a copy of it for you.”

Bryn nodded earnestly. “Would you like to keep one of my paintings?” he asked on impulse.

She smiled, touching his cheek. “I would be proud to have one of your paintings. When you’re famous, I’ll be able to say I was the first person to own a Bryn Evans.”

* * *

WHERE DID THE TIME GO? Suddenly, Bryn was fifteen. Sometimes, he felt a surge of guilt that he was so contented. Three years had rolled by in a moment—years filled with joy, years when Elsa May Malone remained securely stored in the back of his mind, a promise he had yet to fulfill. At night, when memories lurked closest, he’d ache with fear for her. What if she’d slipped so far into her tormented world that she could never return to him? He shuddered, gulping in air. No! He would never believe that.

Bryn was down by the shore, sitting on a rock at the edge of the ocean, mesmerized by the sunlight sparkling on the water. His hands were idle, his sheet of paper blank and untouched. For once, he was unable to concentrate, so eventually he stood up with a sigh and wandered slowly homeward.

As he crossed the lawn beside the house, where other children played and gamboled, he saw a car pull up to the front door. He sidetracked toward the shed, where a baby rabbit was recovering from a foot injury. The last thing Bryn felt like doing was making conversation with a new kid. Anyway, it was Tom’s turn to give the tour—he’d done it last time, when that awful, bossy Wilbur Simms had descended on Long Meadows. Fortunately, he had only stayed two weeks.

Bryn kept to the edge of the lawn, screened by the trees that led directly into the woods, his footsteps slowing as curiosity took over. Would the new arrival be a boy or a girl? he wondered. He’d forgotten to ask Mrs. Evans.

The social worker, Dermot, clambered out of the car first. Bryn liked Dermot—he was funny and nice, and he took the time to talk to you.

The new kid got out of the car on the far side, so Bryn only saw the back of her head. There was something familiar about her, though.... Tightness came into his chest, and he stopped in his tracks. She flicked her mane of golden-brown hair and the breath fled from his body. He wanted to run to her, but his legs refused to move. She was walking away toward the open front door where Mrs. Evans stood beaming.

“Elsa?”

The word was a croak in his throat, but she heard it—if he’d been a million miles away, he was sure she would have heard it. Slowly, oh, so slowly, she turned her face toward him.... Tanned skin, clear amber eyes, delicate, perfect features...the same and yet not the same—older and so much more beautiful.

His Elsa was here at last. She was calm and serene now, with none of the lion cub showing. But then, with a sense of relief, he saw it—behind her green and gold-flecked eyes, the sleeping lion cub was waiting to get out.

“Hello,” she said with a smile, slipping her hand neatly into his, as if they hadn’t been torn apart all that time ago.

“Hello,” he replied.

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