Free Friendship's Bond by Meg Hutchinson

the pair o’ you be safe in England. As for the bad dreams they be a consequence o’ what you’ve gone through an’ though they be fearful when they comes they’ll fade given time.’
    ‘ Fade given time .’
    The words lingered in Ann’s mind after Leah had left to milk the cows.
    But time had no end and neither did the nightmare. She had briefly told Leah of what had followed the uprising in the Ploschad Morskoy Slavy, of the onrush of armed horsemen causing panic in the crowds and how she, without conscious thought, had grabbed the boy and pulled him with her as she turned to run. But that was all she had told.
    Ann set a pan of water above the fire Leah had lit then reached for a jar containing porridge oats.
    ‘ I have to get ship for England. ’
    She watched the oats she had poured into the pan swirl in the stirred water; it seemed she saw again the panicked crowd, the terrified faces of women, the fearful countenances of men all rushing to get away from the threat of horses’ hooves, the sabres of their riders; a mass of people with no mind to listen to a girl even had they understood her words.
    It had been as if she was caught in a great tide of people carrying her along, carrying her with them aboard ship; only then had she realised she still held the arm of a complete stranger, a young boy who had gasped in disbelief as he saw his companion shot dead.
    Disbelief they had both shared!
    Somehow she had found a corner with space enough for herself and the boy to sit, then as her nerves quieted enough for her to think with reasonable clarity she had decided to request she be shown her cabin.
    ‘ Niet . . . niet .’
    This was the response to her every question; people pushed her away, their own troubles obviously enough to deal with. At last she had found a man in uniform, the gold braid of what could signify a senior officer adorning a heavy jacket.
    He had shaken his head at her question.
    ‘ Niet .’ It had come with a flourish of the hand together with a rapid spate of words which though unintelligible to her were clearly emphasising his denial.
    ‘ But I have reserved a cabin!? ’
    Desperation had her flourish her ticket but it had simply resulted in yet another curt ‘no’.
    The boy had explained. He had followed her and now interpreted what had been said.
    She had no cabin.
    In darkness which had fallen rapidly as a lowered curtain she had stared at the lad, seeming to hear from a thousand miles away his quiet, ‘ You have no reservation. This ship does not sail to England, this is the ferry going to Finland. ’
    The panic, the dash for the entry to the docks: in the madness of it she had been carried not in the direction of the ocean seaport but in that of the local ferry.
    The boy’s words had stunned her. How did she find her way home from there, a country she had never set foot in? How long had she stood on the deck, the splash of waves against the hull of the ship not registering, her only feeling that of numbness until . . .
    The remembered shock made her tighten her fingers about the spoon.
    . . . until returning to the corner where she had sat! Cloud over the pale moon had added to the darkness so at first she had not noticed, then as a filter of moonbeams cast pallid light she had seen her suitcase lying open, its contents gone. She had dropped to her knees, her distracted mind asking only one thing. Where was the photograph of her mother? Alec had found it, handing it to her with quiet sympathy.
    Ann stirred the contents of the pan but saw only pictures of the past.
    She had been clutching at the photograph, her head bent low over it, so she had paid no attention to the boy until a startled cry made her glance up then slowly, disbelievingly, rise to her feet. With one arm across the boy’s throat and the other encircling his body a man dragged him to stand against the ship’s rail.
    Who had that man been, what was it he had demanded she give, and who was the one who had shot him