‘This is incredible,’ she said. ‘You take your inspiration from the landscape?’

Harry beamed, his hands in his pockets. ‘I do. This place …’ He looked away, across the field. ‘This place is full of strangeness.’

‘We’re trying to find out more about it, actually,’ said Heather. ‘Do you know much of the history of Fiddler’s Mill?’ She tucked a stray bit of hair behind her ear; the wind was picking up, and the awning caught the flat sound of the first few drops of rain. ‘We met a chap yesterday who said there’s a haunted field around here somewhere.’

‘There is, that’s true. I’ve been there. I didn’t see any ghosts …’ Heather glanced at him, but couldn’t tell if he was joking. ‘Some powerful energies though. Very powerful.’

‘And there was the hippy commune up at Fiddler’s Mill House. Did you hear about that?’

Harry straightened up. For the first time, Heather thought to wonder at his bare arms – it was hardly a warm day.

‘You know that’s infamous around here.’ He grinned. ‘I grew up in the little village down the road, and my mum used to talk about it with the neighbours when I were a lad. Enough scandal to keep them talking for decades.’

Nikki returned his smile. ‘Scandal? Do tell.’

‘Oh, you know.’ Harry shrugged. ‘Nothing especially scandalous to people from London, I’ll bet, but up here? Drugs and drinking and loose women. I always preferred my nanna’s stories about Fiddler’s Mill – she was more about ghosts and that, fairies and witches, you know. I always …’

His words were lost in a gust of wind, and the pair of them shuffled further under the awning.

‘Sorry?’ Heather nodded encouragingly. ‘Please, local folklore is a special interest of mine.’

Harry looked faintly embarrassed now, and he rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. ‘Aye, well. She said there was a woman who haunted the woods around here, a woman wearing a red coat. Swore her life on it, she did. You’ve heard why it’s called Fiddler’s Mill, have you?’

‘No?’ Heather wrapped her arms around herself and glanced out across the grass. The line of dark woods continued there, waiting for them.

‘Well,’ Harry said, ‘there was a mill, a long time ago, but that was named after the woods, you see. And the woods were said to belong to the fiddler, a man who came to the village with a magical fiddle. When he played it, the children became so caught up in the music, so absorbed in it, they would do whatever he wanted them to do. He took them away, to his secret home in the woods, and they never came back.’

‘What?’ Heather ignored the look of surprise Nikki shot her. ‘What are you talking about?’