Free The Witch's Daughter by Nina Bawden

tinkling over in tiny waterfalls. Tim scrambled down a little way and lay on his stomach to look over the battlements of his castle. Along to his left, water wasfalling from higher up onto a rocky promontory with a patch of grass beside it. It looked inviting, and Tim had a sudden desire to see if he could reach it. The sides of the rock looked sheer, but there was a narrow ledge, two or three inches wide, leading to the waterfall.
    He let himself cautiously down, until his toes touched this ledge. Then he flattened himself against the side of the rock and inched sideways like a crab. He was almost at the waterfall when a stone rolled beneath him. He threw himself sideways, twisting his ankle. For a terrifying second, his foot seemed to give way beneath him and he might have fallen, if his frantic fingers had not found a handhold, a crack in the rock. Precariously clinging, he looked down and saw the dislodged stone bounce on the jagged rocks beneath him and disappear in the churning sea …
    He felt sick. Sea, rock and sky seemed to turn about him and he closed his eyes until the giddiness passed. Then he forced himself to open them and forced himself to move, clinging like a fly to the rock, one terrifying step, then another, until he reached the flat ledge of grass he had been making for.
    He collapsed upon it, cold and sweaty from fear and the pain in his foot. The pain was like knives, like fire, shooting up his leg, up his whole body. There was a whirring in his head and he seemed to be swimming away into darkness …
    *
    Something hard and cold touched his face. He opened his eyes and saw a girl’s face above him. She wore something round her neck, dangling on a piece of string: it was this that had swung forward to touch his face as she bent over him. As he stirred, she gave a little cry and would have jerked away if he had not caught hold of the string and held her fast. Her eyes dilated with a wild look: he made a great effort, pulled himself up and threw her down beside him. She lay under the weight of his arm, shivering like a trapped bird.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to hurt you. But you mustn’t go away.’
    Janey, he thought, Janey. How long had he been unconscious? The thought frightened him. Janey was sensible, she had promised to stay exactly where he had left her, but she was only nine and time dragged when you were waiting. Suppose she wandered off, looking for him? He had told her the danger, but had she understood it? How could you really understand the danger of rocks and sea, when you were blind?
    He said, ‘You mustn’t run away, you’ve got to help.’ The girl said nothing, just lay staring at him with wide eyes that were the same colour as her green scarf. He wondered, for a desperate minute, if she was deaf—or mad. ‘My sister, Janey,’ he pleaded. ‘She’s alone on the beach. She’s only little and she’s …’
    She swallowed. He saw the movement of her throat. She said, with what seemed tremendous effort, ‘Janey’s all right.’ And then, as if in speaking to him she had broken through some barrier, she relaxed and smiled, shyly. ‘She’s my friend.’
    He looked at her. ‘I know,’ he said suddenly. ‘You’re the girl on the beach.’
    He let her go and lay back on the grass. ‘My foot hurts,’ he said.
    She knelt to look. His ankle was swollen like a fruit, tight inside the skin of his sock. She removed his shoe and then, very gently, peeled off the sock. She took off her green scarf, soaked it under the waterfall, and wrapped it round his ankle. The cold was soothing. She examined his face anxiously and said, after a minute, ‘Can you walk on it?’
    ‘I can try …’
    She helped him up and he stood, leaning on her and looking back along the face of the rock. And then down at the sea. ‘I can’t do it,’ he said.
    She smiled. ‘I know a better way. On the other side of the waterfall. You’ll have to lean on me.’
    He looked at her