Free Fear by Night by Patricia Wentworth

say no more.
    â€œAnd how shall I get my letters to the post?”
    â€œJimmy’ll take them. There’s a post-box over by the landing, and the postman comes that far and takes what’s there and leaves what he’s brought with ’im. He don’t come every day.”
    Ann gave her letter to Jimmy Halliday, and began to wonder when she would get an answer. It would be nice to hear from Charles. It would be like hearing from someone in another world. She began to feel as if she had got over the edge of the world she knew and off the map. It would be very nice to hear from Charles.
    She found she was counting the days. But of course if the postman didn’t come every day, it was no good counting. Mrs. Halliday didn’t seem to know how often he came, and when she asked Jimmy Halliday, he threw her one of those odd sideways looks and said.
    â€œWhen he feels like it.” And then he laughed, and Ann wasn’t sure that she liked the sound of his laughter.
    And then she found the piece of paper.
    She was out at the back in the yard watching the hens feed. Mary had thrown them some house scraps, and now she came and went to the rubbish-heap beyond, bringing out her ash-bucket to empty. There was a high gusty wind overhead. A little piece of paper came blowing along the yard. The wind caught it, twirled it high, and dropped it at Ann’s feet. She bent to pick it up, and it fluttered away from her as if it was alive. Laughing and breathless, she caught it at last where the path turned upwards amongst the trees. It lay in her hand like a little dead, captured thing. It had whirled away from her and danced on the wind, and now it was only a scrap of dirty paper. And then quite suddenly she stopped laughing and was hot through and through with anger. Under the smudges and stains she could see two words. They were words in her own writing. She had written them herself, and she had written them to Charles—“especially rocks.” Part of “especially” was torn away, but she knew what she had written.
    Someone had torn up her letter to Charles.
    The heat of her anger burned her through and through. And then it was gone, and she was afraid. She really was over the rim of the world. Nobody knew where she was. Charles didn’t know where she was. She wanted desperately for Charles to be able to find her.
    Presently the fear died down, as the anger had died. She tore the scrap of paper in half and buried the pieces under a heather root.
    She thought about writing another letter. She thought about complaining to Mrs. Halliday or to Jimmy. She stood there sheltered by the trees and argued with herself. The letter might have been destroyed by accident.… Oh no, she couldn’t make herself believe in an accident. Then if it wasn’t an accident, what was the use of complaining? A second letter would only share the fate of the first. She stood there for a long time, and then went soberly back to the house.

CHAPTER X
    In a few days Ann had explored the island. It was a most irritating island, because there were only two places where you could get down to the water’s edge.
    There was the beach below the house, and away on the opposite side of the island another tiny strand not a dozen yards across. Everywhere else the sides of the island fell sheer or were banked with a huddle of great rocks and boulders. The beach below the house was a short semicircular stretch of white sand with the boat-house filling up a corner. On either side a tiny headland ran out into the water, and the water was deep.
    Ann had a fright when she tried to paddle out to the headland. The beach shelved gently for a few yards, and then quite suddenly she was up to her neck. It was as if she had stepped down a yard. She stood there with the water moving her lightly to and fro. A ripple came up over her chin and touched her lips with salt. She had the feeling that before her was another deep step down, or