1 THE ASSIGNMENT The bell rang at Willow Elementary School. Gavin and his classmates bumped into each other, trying to reach their seats. Miss Sweets, their history teacher, walked in, dressed in her usual flowery dress. Her curly hair was pulled back from her face in a gold barrette, showing off her bright blue eyes and contagious smile. The kids loved her because she was very kind and made history fun. “Hello, sweet pea...

A year went by, the seasons marching on in their uncompromising way. Imogen had relinquished the house utterly to her niece. It held nothing of the old life except memories grown too painful. Olivia worked hard to build a new life out of it, but progress, as always, was slow. Imogen might be gone, but there remained other ghosts to appease. Moving too much of the furniture at once resulted in chairlegs scratched and fraye...

At the crossroads two women stood, silhouetted against the lavender and cream of the day's end. The moon lurked somewhere deep in the veils of black branches. Down the hill, Reverend Milton was putting a heavy chain and padlock on the churchyard gate, the sound carrying clear in the quiet. Olivia grimaced at their exposed location. It had to be here, at the crossroads. "Verity!" she hissed. "Go and keep a lookout. Please,...

The ringing of the telephone dragged Olivia from the borderlands of sleep and she answered with a growled "Who is it?" A crackling pause, then: "Libby, is that you?" The voice on the other end of the line was faint, obscured, familiar from a lifetime ago. "This handwriting is near illegible, dreadful low class scribble..." the words choked off into tears. "Auntie Imogen?" Imogen gave a shaky sigh, composing herself. "I've...

I'll never forgive you! Olivia woke with a start, alone in the ruined living room. Still no Imogen. Perhaps the loss of Eli had been the push she needed to move on to a happier place, though that thought rang hollow. More likely she'd retreated somewhere more private to grieve over the hole that Olivia had torn in her world, and she would be back any minute, unforgiving and furious with grief. Olivia decided not to wait t...

When Eli arrived, moonrise was still far enough away that Olivia barely felt any hint of the oncoming change. Verity had curled up with her book again, Imogen with a magazine (the pages being easier for her to handle) and Olivia sat down with one of her notebooks to review the beginnings of something she'd started writing some time ago. She couldn't focus. She sat with her notebook on her lap and the pen in her hand, star...

The next month, just as Olivia was on her way to catch the train to Peter's Cross, Grace came running up behind her. "Long time no see," said Grace, her bright smile as false as the red of her lipstick. She made an exaggerated point of noticing Olivia's overnight bag, ready for the full moon. "Where are you off to, then?" Olivia hesitated, lies not coming easily to her. "I..." "You should come and visit the farm again," G...

Olivia ran down the stairs. Her vague suspicions had coalesced, the message from her dreams loud and clear. With a quick glance to check that nobody was about, she pulled herself into human form and grabbed her coat. Draping it across her shoulders, the briefest sop to modesty, she sprinted barefoot out onto the grass, her breath clouding before her face in the dark, her skin burning and freezing. High above, the moon gla...

The turning of the moon marked time. Olivia didn't return to Peter's Cross until the autumn, and even then she did so reluctantly, skirting around the graveyard so she could walk up to the vicarage by road, considering it well worth the extra shoe leather if it kept her out of sight of Eli and Verity. Her dread at the thought of unpreparedly running into Eli had obvious roots, crossing his path had never done her any good...

Lost in miserable contemplation, Olivia had no concept of how far the journey took her. High hedges and the grasping bare branches of trees lined the lanes, all alike. Once in a while, signs of habitation loomed and passed, clustered cottages or solitary houses on long stretches of empty road. White signposts marked placenames that Olivia only half-knew, and Grace had fallen silent, concentrating on the way ahead. The lit...

Putting on her coat, feeling for the reassurance of the small slip of paper in her pocket, Olivia walked out into the early twilight and down to the phone box. She could only pray that Grace might still be with her friends, and she breathed a sigh of relief when the cheery voice on the other end of the line told her to wait just a minute. "What happened to you?" said Grace, skipping the pleasantries. Olivia cringed: she'd...

Olivia woke with her cheek pressed against cold hard earth, painfully aware of every bone inside her flesh, the awkward arrangement of jaw and skull bones, string of aching vertebrae, arm and leg bones loose at the joints. She decided against standing up just yet. Fragments of last night's memory slotted into place. The bright round moon, Eli, tall sharp-scented pines. This morning seemed equally disjointed. A roof overhe...

Imogen knew she had to take some of the blame. Eli had returned to the village to see her, but she'd soon grown jealous when he spent so much time with that pretty girl in perpetual mourning black. If Imogen was honest with herself, she'd jumped at the chance to share a hurtful piece of gossip about that pretty young thing. She hadn't known what Eli would do but the girl had deserved it. It was fitting that she knew now w...

Olivia came home much later than she'd intended, surprised to see lights in the windows. She ran up the path to the front door, splashing in the puddles, singing cheerfully to herself as she hung up her wet coat in the hallway. It had occurred to her that Reverend Milton might not be much help if all he did was talk and Verity refused to listen, so straight after work she'd met with Grace at a cafe by the train station. G...

It had taken Imogen about half an hour to make up her mind to tell Eli what she'd heard, longer to find him, and even longer to wait while he went to confirm for himself what she already knew. Typical man, couldn't take a woman's word for anything. Rather than argue with him, she occupied herself indoors. Since she couldn't imagine herself on speaking terms with Verity any time in the foreseeable future, she ought to spen...