Robin knew she was right, but wasn’t going to let her know it. He felt like a petulant child who only wanted to add to the petulance. “Are you coming or not?”

“I’m coming,” Sally said. “You need me. Because you’re going the wrong way.”

Robin looked at her as she turned and started walking the other way. He found himself following once again. Sally was speaking the truth, and hadn’t he wondered himself, in the back of his mind, what would happen if he had to choose? In that moment, though, he saw Sam at the end of a long road.

And following this scrap of paper would lead him closer. To her.

And that was what mattered. That was all that mattered.

Chapter Thirty-One

Sally led him back to the Diggle entrance of Standedge Tunnel. She followed the canal a little the other way until they came to a bridge. She looked back as she started to cross.

“I’ve never gone to the abandoned tunnel, so I’m just guessing here, but I assume it’s this way.”

Robin nodded as they crossed the bridge, and watched Sally as she hopped over a fence into a probably private field. Robin didn’t even think, just climbed over the fence too—a little less easily than Sally.

There were three horses in the field, hanging around farther down the fence, and they looked around to regard the intruders. Robin stopped to watch them, and started getting left behind. He caught up to Sally halfway across the field.

“How old are you?” he said, slightly awkwardly.

Sally looked around, mirroring his awkwardness. “You wanna check my ID or something?”

“No,” Robin said quickly, “just...what you said back there made a lot of sense. That’s all.”

“I’m twenty,” Sally said.

“Your dad teach you to be so wise?”

Sally laughed. “No. No, he did not.” They got to the end of the field, and Sally hopped over the fence onto a gravel path and watched Robin as he precariously picked his way over, seemingly to enjoy the spectacle. She waited until his feet were back on the ground and set off up the gravel path, crunching with every step. Robin walked too.

“Your mother, then?”

“Mother?” She said it like it was a foreign word. “No... I don’t have one of those.”

“Everyone has a mother.”

She stopped, looked at him thoughtfully.

“What?”

She shrugged and carried on. “You just reminded me of someone for a second.” Before Robin could respond, they rounded a corner, and Sally gave a small whoop of joy. “Well, that was easy.”