The old woman – Deborah – gets the key from Bethan and unlocks the door. On the doorstep is someone bundled up in so many hats and scarves that all I see is a pair of pale blue eyes. Behind her, on the road, sits a tractor, its engine chugging noisily and headlights shining on the snow.

‘Where’s my mum?’ I ask Efa.

She ignores me. ‘Thank you, Deborah,’ she says, her voice muffled by scarves. ‘We appreciate your help, we do. All right, Tulsi. Let’s go.’ She takes a firm grip of my arm and steers me down the path. ‘I see you’ve had the foxes and whatnot out looking after you.’ She points towards a mess of paw prints in the snow, and helps me up into the glass cab of the tractor.

‘Is my mum at your place?’ I ask as she climbs in and slams the door.

She pulls the scarf down. She looks about seventeen or eighteen, her freckled face unsmiling. ‘Not anymore.’

CHAPTER 22

‘Where is she?’ I ask.

‘She left a week ago. She got a job at Elin’s house in the hills, that way,’ says Efa, pointing. She settles onto the seat and edges me off. ‘You’ll have to stand.’ She puts the tractor into gear. ‘Your mam’s not far as the crow flies but by road it will take hours in this weather. Even on a tractor.’ She glances at me. ‘How long have you got until you must return home?’

I look at Sylvie’s watch. ‘About fourteen hours. That’s enough time to get Mum and go back to London, isn’t it?’

She shrugs. ‘In this weather? I don’t know. I’ll take you home. Mam will know what to do.’

‘Oh! What about Pete, who drove me here? His car rolled and he’s hurt.’ My back is pressed against the icy window. I don’t like thinking about how cold poor Pete must be in the upturned Range Rover.

‘Where?’ asks Efa.

I point. ‘That way, at least an hour’s walk. We won’t have to explain things to him. He knows about magic.’

‘You lot!’ She stares at me. ‘I can’t believe the way you tell everybody about magic! Your mam is the same.’ She makes a scared, breathy sound. ‘You didn’t say anything to Deborah and Bethan, did you? Tell me you didn’t.’

‘Of course I didn’t. I’m not stupid!’ The tractor is creeping down the road, retracing the tracks it made on its journey out. We pass small dark cottages and a stone church.

‘I’ll ask Bryn to go and get your friend,’ says Efa. ‘He won’t like being woken but he’ll do it.’

She stops the tractor outside a two-storey stone cottage, lifts the scarf over her mouth and swings down into the snow.