Free In the Moors by Nina Milton Page A

twitched his whiskers and water drops flew from them.
    Step by step I advanced along the passage. I remembered the menacing presence standing close behind me in the little room with the sack of hair. Would I find that presence in the kitchen? The whistle of the kettle became shrill. A girl stepped out of the shadows and switched off the gas.
    â€œWant a cuppa?” she asked me.
    I almost sobbed with relief.
    â€œTake sugar?” she asked, appraising me briefly. She was not even my height, just a girl in her teens. I saw her platinum blonde hair clearly. It was dark at the roots and curling at the ends. But, as I often find on my journeys, her face was quite obscured, sort of wishy-washy. I’m never sure why I can’t see every detail in a trance clearly, but it is usually so. The girl slammed a cup without a saucer down beside the cooker and opened a larder door. She took out a packet of biscuits and sliced through the packet with a bread knife. The biscuits were thin rectangles, pale brown and studded all over their surface with black dots; little bits of crushed currant.
    â€œGaribaldi biscuits,” said the girl. “That’s all there ever is. Bloody squashed flies. Makes you puke to think of it.” She snapped a thin slab of speckled biscuit between her thumb and fingers. “Go on, help yourself.”
    I looked down at Trendle. “Is this a gift?” I asked, meaning should I take the symbol back to Cliff.
    Trendle blinked once. “For you, dear,” he said into my mind.
    â€œBloody take one, will you?” The girl’s voice had changed. She wasn’t joking around any longer. “Take it and get outta here.”
    I thought it wise to do her bidding. I didn’t even stop for confirmation from my guide. I ran along the passage, clutching a Garibaldi. The massive front door slammed behind me with a boom.
    The light was fading fast into evening. I breathed relief out, and my breath whitened before me. I took a step, scrunching over dead leaves.
    â€œThis is Cliff’s spirit world, isn’t it?” I said to Trendle. “No wonder he feels like he does. It needs cleaning up.”
    â€œWe can’t do anything here today,” said Trendle. “Except leave the food as an offering to his guardians.”
    It was good advice. I crumbled the biscuit as if feeding birds. My fingers felt sticky from the currants. “Surely we can help him? His spirit feels so … shattered.”
    â€œYou know that Cliff’s soul is in pieces. It’s going to take a long time to bring them together. Let’s walk with caution.”
    I nodded. Trendle was my conscience, my inner reservations and gut feelings, as well as my spirit friend; I would listen to whatever he had to tell me.
    I stared at the hedge on the far side of the lane. There was not a leaf or bud to be seen. I have a hazel tree in my front garden and at the moment it’s festooned with glorious dangly catkin earrings, but it was still deep winter in this place. I bent a sapless twig and it snapped off in my hand. “You’re not dead, are you?” I asked it. The wind rustled through the brittle branches in reply.
    â€œNothing here is dead,” said Trendle, soft-voiced. “Just debilitated.”
    In the depths of the thicket was a single, perfect hazel catkin. The branches were rough against my hand as I reached in and let it rest on my palm like a caterpillar, a dusting of pollen staining my skin.
    This was the sign I should take back to Cliff, something hopeful for the future. As I thought this, the drumming that was still vibrating at the back of my mind changed its rhythm, calling me home.

    Cliff had fallen into a deep sleep. No wonder I’d been able to slip so quietly in to his world. Gently, I untied my arm from the braid that connected us and went into the kitchen to boot up my laptop. I recorded my journey, saved the file, and printed out a copy for Cliff. I