Free Storm Child by Sharon Sant Page B

her
back?  Perhaps not even a someone but a something .
And now they had taken her away, never to be seen by human eyes again.  It
sounded mad, but it was so easy to believe, alone in the darkness of the woods
with no trace of the girl anywhere, not a footprint, not even a strand of black
hair snagged on a branch to ever show she had been there at all. Charlotte
thought about the tears that her mother would shed over the lost girl, just as
she had done over George. It made Charlotte more determined than ever to find
her, and shaking the fear and cold, she began to shout her name over and over,
into the darkness: ‘Georgina!  Please, Georgina stop hiding! I’m not angry
any more…’  But in the cold of the woods, Charlotte’s words only echoed
back at her.
    Charlotte began to realise that
she was going to have to face going home and telling her mother what had
happened, because she was going to need help.  She turned and started the
trudge back through the woods and across the heath to her cottage.  She
had not walked more than a few metres when her light fell upon a shape on the
floor, a mess of tangled up clothes and hair curled in the crook of a tree
trunk.  Charlotte let out a cry of relief. 
    Georgina had fallen asleep
huddled in the hollow of a huge tree trunk, her thumb in her mouth and her
grubby cheeks streaked with tear tracks.  Charlotte felt a stab of guilt
as she realised that Georgina must have got lost and cried herself to sleep.
Quickly scooping up the little girl, she hugged her close. Georgina’s eyes
opened and she blinked up at Charlotte with a smile. At that moment,
Charlotte’s candle spluttered out and they were plunged into darkness.
    Charlotte didn’t panic, even when
Georgina began to whimper.
    ‘ Shhh .
Don’t be afraid. I’m here,’ she soothed as she held Georgina and wrapped her
shawl around both of them. Georgina clung onto Charlotte’s neck as Charlotte
slowly and carefully picked her way through the woods, using the pale slivers
of moonlight that struggled through the trees to show the way. It wasn’t much
to go on, but it was all they had. She kept upright, ignoring the pain of
banging her ankles and stumbling on tree roots and fallen branches, all the
while holding her precious Georgina safely in her arms.
    They walked and walked, but
somehow, the woods seemed to be as thick as ever.  Charlotte was beginning
to tire.  She was also starting to wonder if they were desperately lost.
She stopped, searching the darkness to see if she could get some clue to the
way out, but everything looked the same, long shadows closing in on them all
around.  Charlotte slid down a tree trunk to sit against it, still holding
Georgina close.  Georgina seemed to understand that they were in trouble,
she held onto Charlotte, shivering and whimpering quietly.
    ‘There must be people searching
by now. Someone will find us soon,’ Charlotte said, more to herself than
Georgina.  But she wasn’t sure if anyone would.
    Then a sound reached her ears, a
low growl close by, followed by a terrifying, howl that cracked the night air.
Charlotte’s breath was stopped in her throat. Leaping to her feet, she held
Georgina close, whose quiet weeping was immediately silenced. Charlotte could
feel the fluttering of her tiny heart even through all their clothes and she
knew how scared the child was; her own beat just as fast. 
    There was no way to tell where
the sound was coming from, but it was close. Charlotte was rooted, unable to
move.  She heard rustling and snuffling, another growl, getting louder and
closer all the time, but she still couldn’t tell the direction from which it
came.  They were trapped.  To move might be to run into whatever was
out there. Charlotte had a good idea just what was out there and the thought
drained the blood from her face.  If only she had listened to Mary
Matthews, if only she hadn’t taken her eyes from Georgina, if only she hadn’t
lost her temper with the