Free Born to Trouble by Rita Bradshaw

the struggle with Mr E Then she bent over the sleeping children, laying her face against one little tousled head and then the other before straightening, the ache in her heart a physical pain.
    Silently she left the room and once downstairs took her hat and coat from their peg in the hall. It was summer and she didn’t need them, but she took them anyway.
    In the kitchen she paused. The bunches of flowers were where James and Patrick had left them on the kitchen table. They belonged to another lifetime, another world. She stood, a small figure in the dark room, whispering, ‘Seth, Seth, I want you, Seth. Please help me,’ but the only sound was the uncaring tick of the mantelpiece clock and a rustling in the corner which meant the mice were hunting for crumbs of food. Her mother had never told her which prison Seth and the others were in, and her requests to visit them had been met with cuffs round the ear until she had learned to stop asking, but never had she longed for her brothers so desperately.
    She had to leave the house. She couldn’t stay and let that happen again. She would walk into the country and hide somewhere and go to sleep. That was as far as her bruised mind could plan and it was enough.
    The night was dark but not as black as she had expected; when she looked up into the sky she saw the moon was high and the stars were bright. She had always been frightened of the dark – Seth had used to tease her about it – but she knew she would never be frightened of the dark again. There were much worse things than ghosts and ghouls.
    When she started to walk she didn’t know how she was going to get to the end of the back lane, let alone to the country. Any movement was excruciatingly painful, and the feeling of nausea had her swallowing hard.
    There were still a few people about once she came into High Street East, but no one paid her any attention and she kept to the shadows, using the alleys and back ways as she forced herself to walk on. After a while the pain seemed dulled, the fear of what was behind her if she didn’t escape the town driving her limbs. When she came to Ashburne House and then Hendon Burn she was surprised she had got this far; it was as though she had been in a dream, unthinking. She was on the outskirts of the town now, not far from where she had brought the boys earlier. The odd farm and big house were interspersed with old quarries and disused clay pits, the countryside stretching before her. She breathed in the warm night air, her senses heightened even as her mind remained in the vacuum where it had taken refuge.
    She walked until she couldn’t walk any more. If she had but known it, the birds were a few breaths away from beginning the dawn chorus when she crawled into the shelter of an ancient tree, the bottom of its trunk almost hollowed away and providing a small cave-like structure. Spreading out her coat, she fell asleep the moment she lay down.
    When Pearl awoke, late-afternoon sunlight was slanting through a tiny crack in her hidey-hole. The day was very warm, but lying as she was inside the tree, the sun had not burned her. She lay looking out of the hole she’d crawled through. Tall grasses were swaying gently in the mild breeze and she could hear birdsong. On raising her head she felt so sick and dizzy that she was glad to shut her eyes again. This time though, her sleep was punctuated by strange dreams and disturbing images, and although she was uncomfortable and in pain she didn’t have the will or strength to do more than toss and turn. She knew she was unwell, but it didn’t matter. She didn’t want to wake up properly and leave her sanctuary, she just wanted to sleep.
    Night fell. A vixen with her cubs passed the tree and paused, sniffing the air before hurrying her offspring away. An owl hooted, the creatures of the night went about their business as they always did, and eventually the pale pink light of dawn began another day. And in the hollow of the tree