Free Beneath by Gill Arbuthnott Page B

you understand what this does to me?” He fingered the torque. “I have no choice. If you tell me to do something, I have to do it. I can’t give you away. So, can I go now?”
    “There’s one more thing.” Jess hesitated. “I’m sorry I’ve had to hurt you to get Freya back. I didn’t know it would do that to you.” She gestured to the angry weal under the torque.
    Finn watched her face.
    “But you would have done it, wouldn’t you, even if you had known?” he asked quietly.
    She nodded.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Time slowed to a crawl for Jess. She’d watched Finn make his way across the meadow without looking back, and disappear into the complex of little buildings. Since then, nothing. Not a glimpse, not a sound. She’d expected him to reappear with Freya more or less immediately. What was he doing?
    Despite what he had said, she pictured him with his family, showing them the torque, the others working out a way to trick her.
    She imagined how he must have watched her family and the farm, thought of all the times she’d felt there was someone near her in the woods. It was a disturbing idea, but it had never felt like a threatening presence at the time. Was he horse or boy as he watched? She found herself wishing she had spotted him, and that they could have become friends. She felt herself drawn to him in some way she couldn’t articulate.
    Where were they? Why was this taking so long? Something must be wrong. Five minutes more and then…
    Wait
.
    Two figures emerged from the building at last. Finn and Freya, hand in hand, smiling and talking, looking as though they had known each other all their lives, as if they had nothing better to do than to stroll beside the river.
    The noise of hooves distracted Jess. She glanced towards the sound, and saw a horse galloping towards Finn’s house. Had he found a way to summon other Nykur to help him? Was this a member of his family?
    This horse was smaller than Finn, more delicate, but just as black, just as glossy. As Jess watched, the horse neared the floating house and…
    …and was gone. Jess blinked, thinking this was some trick of the shifting light, but there was no horse any more. Instead there was a girl, a girl with black hair falling in curls and waves around her face.
    It was one thing to have in your mind the
idea
of a horse that changed into a person, but to see it happen… Jess felt overwhelmed by Finn’s world. What had made her think she could come here and rescue Freya from these people? She held her breath, waiting to see what the girl would do, and let it out in relief when she ran lightly up the steps into the house.
    As soon as she was gone, Jess hurried out from the shelter of the trees, retaining just enough sense not to shout Freya’s name. She watched as Finn’s expression changed to dismay and Freya’s to bafflement, saw Finn silently mouth
Get back
at her, and stopped dead.
    They were close enough now for Jess to hear Freya’s voice as she turned to Finn and said in puzzlement,
    “Who’s that, Finn?”
    Although Finn had warned Jess that Freya wouldn’t remember home, Jess had thought she would know
her
, but Freya looked at her as though she were a stranger.
    Jess arranged her face into something that looked like a smile as Finn replied.
    “This is Jess. She’s a friend.”
    Jess could hear the tension in his voice, saw Freya glance at him as she picked it up too, and then look round at the house from which they had come, Finn pulling her towards Jess all the time.
    “Wait,” said Freya. “Rowan just got back. Didn’t you hear her? Surely she’ll want to see Jess too?”
    “She can see Jess later,” Finn said, ploughing grimly on.
    Freya stopped and tried to pull her arm loose.
    “Stop, Finn. Let’s call her. She’ll want to come with us.”
    Before Finn could do anything, Freya had turned to thehouse.
    “Rowan!” she shouted at the top of her voice. “Hurry up. Someone’s come to see us.”
    There was no point in