I got bundled up in my coat and hat and left the house. I had to walk slightly bent because there was a mini gale blasting across the moors and fields. But at least it had stopped hailing.

The sheep were still huddled together against the wind.

Looking at me.

I shouted to the sheep. “I love you, my little woolly friends.”

They didn’t like it. They didn’t want to be my friends. They wanted to be my unfriends. They shuffled off as a group and tried to get in the hedge. And looked at me from there.

They are very cross-eyed.

Maybe it is so they can see round corners?

That would be handy if there were wolves creeping up behind you.

Hang on—your eyes should go outward to do that, not inward so that you just see your own looming nose. How useful would that be?

Anyway, I can’t be bothered about the animal kingdom, I am too busy being in a good mood. I’m going to do run-run-leap to The Sound of Music to keep me warm. Run, run, leap … “The hills are alive with the sound of …”

Oh great balls of fire. Leaning against the gate of the churchyard, like a great dark crow, was him. The Dark Force of Heckmondwhite. The Black Hearted Prince himself. Cain.

Cain Hinchcliff.

He was dressed all in black, a long black coat and black boots. He had his collar turned up against the wind. His hair is longer than when I last saw him. And it looks even blacker. He saw me, so I stopped leaping and started pretending that my boots were falling down. A half smile crossed his face. Not a nice beamy smile, a dark twisty smile. He pushed his hair back and looked me right in the eyes. His eyes are so black you can’t tell what he is thinking. I know what I am thinking. I am thinking, Oh, banana skins and bejesus, he’s seen me leaping, and talking to sheep.

Cain licked his lips like a hungry wolf and said, “Well, well, well … it’s the young Southern lass back.”

Then he ran his eyes up and down my body and said, “Tha’s grown a bit.”

Oh, how bloody well dare he?! How could he see through my coat? Maybe he had X-ray vision. What color pants had I got on? Oh, stop it, of course he couldn’t see through my coat and see my pants. He was just being him. Rude and crude and horrible.

If I had my handbag I would hit him with it. I only had my hat or my mittens and that didn’t seem nearly violent enough.

He was like an animal in trousers. Still, on the other hand, he had said I’d grown a bit, which means, I’d grown a bit. Not that I care what he thinks.

As the wind plucked at his hair and whipped it round his face, I remembered the last time I had seen him. It was in the barn and he was poking the owlets with a little stick.