Free The Woman in Black by Martyn Waites Page B

it at him. Then he made a show of folding it up, putting it in his pyjama pocket, patting it. Edward felt distressed beyond words.
    ‘Give it back.’
    The whole group sat up to see what was happening. James was standing at the foot of Tom’s bed, hands on hips.
    ‘I said, give it back to Edward.’
    Tom stared at him in amazement. This was the first time James had stood up to him. The first time anyone in the group had done so. And from the look on James’s face, he wasn’t going to back down. Not without a fight.
    Tom threw back his bedclothes and squared upto him. But the fight didn’t get started, because at that moment, outside the window, they heard a rumbling drone. They knew immediately what it was. Months of air raids on London had told them that.
    The fight forgotten, they all got out of their beds and rushed over to the windows, jostling each other for the clearest view, cupping their eyes to see better.
    In the distance, out in the winter sky above the sea, was a squadron of Halifax bombers making its way home.
    ‘It’s a raid!’ screamed Fraser.
    ‘They’re English, idiot,’ said Alfie.
    The little boy looked round, embarrassed. ‘I knew that,’ he said.
    Joyce shushed them, pointed. ‘Look.’
    One of the bombers was on fire. It started to fall away from the rest of the group. The children all stared, enrapt, whispering prayers, words of encouragement, willing it to stay aloft.
    None of them noticed as, behind the candles’ pale and flickering light, one shadow detached itself from the rest and moved towards the children. Dressed in black, her face bleached-bone white, she came and stood behind them. While they looked at the plane, she looked at them, her coal-black eyesdancing with undisguised malevolence. Looking along the line, choosing …
    ‘What on earth is going on here?’
    Jean stood in the doorway, about to admonish the children further, but when she saw what they were looking at, came to join them.
    Unseen, the dark figure with the bleached-bone face receded into the shadows.
    In the sky, the plane could no longer keep up. The fire had spread all along its fuselage and consumed one wing. It began to fall, flames enveloping it even further. They all watched as it spiralled down into the sea. When it hit the surface of the water, it was so far away it barely made a sound.
    The rest of the squadron passed over and the night was quiet again. The sea calm now, as if nothing had ever disturbed its surface. But they were all still staring, looking at the empty sky, trying to take in what they had just seen. Even Jean.
    In her room, Eve had also watched it happen. But she had closed her eyes before the plane hit the water. She clutched the cherub pendant tight to her throat.
    ‘Please let it not be Harry …’

Another Presence
    His mother was smiling and she was wearing her best coat. The black one. She was calling to him, and Edward, his heart bursting with joy to see her again, was running as fast as he could towards her.
    Everything had been a dream, he thought as he ran. The air raid, the explosion, the house, the nursery … everything. This was real. This was happening.
    He kept running, almost reaching her, almost there. But every time he came close to her, she seemed to move further away. Always distant, always out of touch, calling to him but knowing he could never reach her. Then at last he began to make some headway. He could have cried out in joy, laughed aloud. He was going to hold his mother again. Soon. Now.
    Only it wasn’t his mother any more. She had changed. She was still wearing black but it wasn’t his mother’s good coat. Her clothes were old, shabby. And she wore something over her face – a veil? It didn’t hide the face beneath. He could see her white skin stretched tight so it looked like dead, weathered bone; her eyes, black and hard, glittering with spite and malice. And he was running towards her.
    He tried to make himself stop, force his feet to slow