The Retreat(48)

They had stopped at a traffic light and he turned round in his seat, the seatbelt straining against his belly. ‘The prettiest girl in the town disappeared. A girl as pretty as you two. She was eight years old, out running an errand for her mother. And she never came home. The townsfolk searched the woods, and guess what they found?’

‘What, Grandad?’

‘A pile of bones at the foot of a tree. Among the bones was a necklace the pretty young girl had been wearing.’

Lily closed her eyes, imagining it. The girl’s mum and dad, crying over the bones, crying and wishing they hadn’t ignored the Widow’s demands.

Mr Collins showed his horrible teeth. ‘The best part is, it’s all true.’

Lily turned to look at Megan, expecting to exchange a smile about the scary but silly story – as if it were true! – but Megan looked as serious as she did when their teacher told them Important Facts.

They parked near the river – the same river where the witch had killed those fish – and Megan’s grandad went into an old building, leaving the radio on for them. He came out ten minutes later and they saw him go into the bookshop next door. When he got back to the car, he handed each of them a paper bag. Inside each was the same book: Folk Tales and Urban Myths.

‘You’ll enjoy that, girls,’ he said. ‘Right, Lily, we’d better get you home.’

Lily opened the book and immediately recoiled from a gruesome drawing of a werewolf munching on a sheep’s belly. She snapped it shut. Next to her, Megan leafed through hers, exclaiming ‘Awesome!’ and ‘Oh my God!’

Lily looked up and saw Mr Collins watching her in the rear-view mirror. A shiver ran from her toes to the hair on her head and she closed her eyes.

She kept them shut all the way home.





Chapter 24

The next morning, I worked on my novel for a couple of hours, although I found it hard to concentrate. I spent more time staring out the window than I did looking at the screen. My mind kept returning to what I’d seen at Megan’s house. Her brother, Jake, pointing towards the woods, the same woods I was staring at now.

Widow.

My mind flashed back to the time I’d explored the woods and found that strange little hut.

There had been a soft toy inside, hadn’t there? At the time I hadn’t even known about Lily’s disappearance, so hadn’t thought anything of it. I knew now that Lily’s soft toy, Big Cat, had been found in the river. But had someone abducted her, kept her there in that hut and given her a toy to pacify her? It didn’t quite add up, because surely the police must have checked that hut, but I could no longer work. I was compelled to go and have another look.

It took thirty minutes to retrace my steps and locate the clearing and the stone hut. A group of magpies hopped about in the long, damp grass, chattering to one another. A light drizzle soaked my clothes and face, the weather so dismal it was actually a relief to take shelter in the grim, litter-strewn interior of the hut.

I had forgotten how dilapidated it was. The door was rotten and the windows smashed. Not a great place to keep a child prisoner, although the abductor could have tied or chained her up. I could imagine local teenagers coming here to take drugs or have sex, or both, although the creepiness of the place might deter them. The image of a little girl sitting here, shivering with fear and cold, played out in my mind.

The soft toy was nowhere to be seen. I poked at the litter with my shoe. I was sure it had been in this spot beside the bench.

Had someone been back and taken it?

If someone had abducted Lily and kept her in this hut, surely they wouldn’t have been foolish enough to leave a toy here in the first place? The likelihood was that it had been here for many years. Perhaps a visiting teenager had taken it, or chucked it outside. Maybe a dog had been in and carried it off. There were multiple possible explanations, all of which had nothing to do with Lily.

Disappointed, I left the hut – and glimpsed a figure on the far side of the field, directly opposite the spot where I’d entered the clearing. Beyond this field was another part of the woods. The person vanished into the trees.

They had been wearing a red coat.

Ursula? What was she doing out here?

I hurried across the field, scaring the magpies, which scattered and flew towards high branches. I counted them. Seven. How did the rhyme go? Seven for a secret never to be told.

Not the most auspicious sign.

I reached the spot where I’d seen Ursula vanish into the trees. She was probably just out for a walk, exploring the area. Or maybe, I thought sarcastically, her spirit guide was leading her. It still seemed odd, though, that she would come out here in the drizzle, so far from the house. I couldn’t resist the urge to follow and see what she was up to. I headed into the woods after her.

I could see her in her red coat just up ahead, walking unhurriedly along the path. She had her back to me and hadn’t seen me, as far as I could tell. She had her hood up to protect her from the rain, and she held out a hand, touching the trunks of trees as she passed. Perhaps she was communing with them.

The path forked ahead of her and she swerved left. I followed, but found myself confronted by a huge puddle of black mud. I skirted around it. As I trod back onto the path, I realised I’d lost sight of her. I increased my pace and turned left at the fork. There she was, heading into a thick tangle of vegetation, pushing through sideways, away from the path. That seemed like a strange thing to do. Had she spotted something on the other side? The bushes obscured her and I hung back for a second before following. Brambles clawed at my coat and a wren popped out of the bushes, startling me. I made an aah! sound, my voice shattering the peace of the woods. Ursula must have heard me, but she didn’t stop moving.