Would Alice even find out that Lily had tried to find her?

She was gathering speed. Her balance was failing and she screwed her eyes closed, holding her breath in an attempt to brace herself for the fall. She covered her face with her hands and screamed ‘Stop!’ in her wild, panicked, near-death state. Almost as swiftly as the rocky avalanche had started, the entire sliding path stopped. She had ordered it to halt and it had listened.

Lily pitched forwards, landing with a thud on the ground. She opened her eyes and gazed down at the village that was still so far beneath her. Miraculously, she had fallen in such a manner that her head was suspended over the edge of the cliff, but the weight of her body kept her firmly on the ground. Through the folds of hair that fell down around her face, she felt her blood pounding in her ears.

She had no interest in looking down at the ground a moment longer.

All she could imagine was a picture of herself in a crumpled and bloody heap amongst the little buildings and outhouses. Death had been watching, close by. She had felt him, felt the flicker of his skeletal hand at her throat, seen the light glimmer on the edge of his scythe. He had been ready to send her over the edge, and she felt sure that in some other world, she had fallen to her death there and then. But somehow, she had cheated him. Lily felt sure that she heard his frustrated cry as she rolled over and sat up, heart racing but very much alive.

She let out a crazed laugh of disbelief. Lily couldn’t work out how or why the falling rocks had simply stopped in their tracks, but she was too appreciative to focus too heavily on the details. If she believed in magic, which she most definitely did not, she might have believed that something otherworldly had saved her in that moment.

She expelled a breath, brushed the dirt and grit from her dress as well as she could, threw her hair up into a messy knot on top of her head, and secured her carpet bag over her shoulder before attempting to continue down the cliff path. She walked with slow, deliberate steps, acutely aware of every rock, every piece of gravel, every patch of mud beneath her feet.

After what felt like a thousand steps, she finally reached the bottom and felt a wave of relief wash over her. Then she looked ahead and her heart sank. The sun was beginning to set, but instead of casting a warm glow over the world, there was a bitter and eerie fog rolling in off the sea.

Chapter Fifteen

When Alice woke again, the first thing she noticed was the lack of movement. It seemed that they had finally reached whatever destination they were heading for, which brought her more fear than comfort. She knew she couldn’t hide from these people any longer by sleeping.