Free Is by Joan Aiken

done. It had been dug up, piled into heaps, covered with machinery and buildings – including hundreds of immensely tall, thin factory chimneys – and then it had all been allowed to go to ruin.
    It’s like a birthday cake someone jumped on and forgot to light the candles, thought Is, looking at all the spidery chimneys.
    ‘Is this place Playland?’ she asked the old gentleman.
    ‘I believe by some people it has been so designated,’ he told her. ‘Its proper name is Blastburn.’
    Blastburn! Aha! thought Is, but she said no more, for the old gentleman walked at such a swinging pace that she almost had to trot to keep up with him.
    The place was all slopes, uphill and downhill, steep ridges with narrow valleys between, and odd rows of little two-storey houses set here and there in what seemed a very random manner. They were built mostly of grey stone, with roofs of grey slate, but some were of brown freckled bricks. All seemed unoccupied.
    After going up and down several short cobbled roads, Father Lancelot came to a stop outside a row of houses which, apparently because of being crammed into a particularly narrow gap between two steep ridges, were taller than the rest, four or five storeys high. They looked unnaturally tall and narrow, like books in a half-filled bookshelf. One, at least, was inhabited; smoke trickled from its chimneys. A sign at the end of the small row said WASTELAND COTTAGES.
    ‘Here we are,’ announced Father Lancelot, and picked his way across a small untidy snow-covered garden patch, littered with half bricks and broken pots.
    He opened the front door, which gave on to a steep flight of stairs and a passage leading through to the back.
    ‘Mr Twite?’ he called. ‘Mr Twite, are you there? Are you awake?’ – taking a step or two along the passage. Then, turning to Is, he explained, ‘My chamber is upstairs, on the second floor. Mr Twite lives here on the ground level. His daughter occupies the third floor upstairs. She , of course, might be a more proper person to receive you,’ he added doubtfully, ‘but I fancy that she is away at present on a mission.’
    ‘His daughter? On a mission?’ Is gaped at the clergyman in astonishment. It was news to her that her Uncle Twite had a daughter – but quite welcome news.
    At this moment shuffling footsteps could be heard, and a man carrying a candle made his appearance, coming slowly along the passage.
    The hand holding the candle trembled so much that melted wax flew all over the flagged floor. That was the first thing Is noticed.
    ‘You don’t require that candle, sir. It is day,’ said Father Lancelot kindly and, stepping forward, blew it out.
    ‘Eh? Day? Oh. No doubt you are right.’ Mr Twite laid the candle carefully down on the floor. Then, slowly straightening himself, he stared at Is. She stared back, quite silent with surprise.
    He can’t be my uncle , she thought. He certainly can’t be Hosiah Twite’s brother. Or my dad’s. That just couldn’t be possible. Compared to him, Father Lance is a choir boy.
    Mr Twite looked unbelievably old. His skin was greyish-brown, netted finely all over with wrinkles, but shiny, like weathered wood; in fact he resembled some aged tool which has been used by the same family for hundreds of years, bent, seamed, shaped, and polished with constant use. His eyes were blue – like mine, thought Is – but very faded. His hands were knotted like roots, and shook gently all the time. He wore a kind of dressing-gown, which seemed to have been made out of a thick grey blanket; his skinny legs were bare, and on his feet he had red-and-green slippers, quite new and clean, with red bobbles on them. Somebody looks arter him right well, thought Is.
    And his voice, when he spoke again, was clear and collected.
    ‘Who is this young person? How does she come to be here? How is it that the constables or the wardens have not taken her up?’
    ‘I found her in my church, not ten minutes since,’ explained