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Chapters (52)
  1. Cover
  2. Margaret Dickinson
  3. Dedication page
  4. Contents
  5. Part One
  6. One
  7. Two
  8. Three
  9. Four
  10. Five
  11. Six
  12. Seven
  13. Eight
  14. Nine
  15. Ten
  16. Eleven
  17. Twelve
  18. Thirteen
  19. Fourteen
  20. Fifteen
  21. Sixteen
  22. Part Two
  23. Seventeen
  24. Eighteen
  25. Nineteen
  26. Twenty
  27. Twenty-One
  28. Twenty-Two
  29. Twenty-Three
  30. Twenty-Four
  31. Twenty-Five
  32. Twenty-Six
  33. Twenty-Seven
  34. Twenty-Eight
  35. Twenty-Nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-One
  38. Thirty-Two
  39. Thirty-Three
  40. Thirty-Four
  41. Thirty-Five
  42. Thirty-Six
  43. Thirty-Seven
  44. Thirty-Eight
  45. Thirty-Nine
  46. Forty
  47. Forty-One
  48. Forty-Two
  49. Sow the Seed
  50. Note
  51. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  52. Copyright page

Kate was asleep again and the next time she awoke she could hear the sea. It was her whelk shell. She was hearing the sea in her shell – the shell Danny had given her. She felt for the pocket of her coat. But she was not wearing her coat.

‘Me shell, Grandad. I’ve lost me shell. Isobel’s got me shell . . .’

But now she could smell the salt air and hear the waves across the marsh. It wasn’t her shell. It was real.

Then Kate knew she was home.

Will himself carried her from his carrier’s cart and into the farmhouse, straight up the stairs and into her own bedroom. Tenderly he laid her on her bed. Her mother and stepfather followed, bewildered and anxious.

‘Oh Katie, my darling girl.’ Her mother was bending over her, caressing her with gentle, loving hands.

‘Mam, dun’t be angry, dun’t send me back. I dun’t mind if you love Lilian more, but please dun’t make me go back.’ Then Kate began to cough, a tearing sound from deep in her chest.

Her mother’s voice was a frantic whisper. ‘Dear Lord! What has happened to her? She’s so thin and who’s cut her hair?’

‘Now listen to me, Esther,’ Kate heard her grandfather say, ‘this lass stays put and if you try to send her away again, ya’ll have me to answer to.’

Kate looked up into her mother’s face and felt her hand upon her forehead. ‘Ya needn’t worry, Dad,’ Esther was saying. ‘But someone’ll answer for this. Oh yes, someone will definitely have to answer me a few questions.’

‘Mam – I haven’t got to go back, have I?’

‘No, my love, dun’t fret. Ya never going back there.’

Kate closed her eyes. The sound of their voices came and went and she felt herself undressed and put between the sheets with hot bricks wrapped in cloth placed at her feet and on either side of her. As she began to sweat the fever out, she fretted no more. She was home for good. Her mother had promised.

And for all Esther Godfrey’s strictness, she never broke her promises.

Eleven

She was having strange dreams; she was trying to run but her feet were like lead, her heart was thudding in her chest and she couldn’t move. Then it felt as if someone at the end of her bed was lifting her legs.

‘Mam, dun’t lift me legs. It feels funny. Dun’t lift me legs.’

‘Katie love, I’m not touching your legs,’ came her mother’s voice as if from a great distance, and she heard her stepfather’s gentle voice too. ‘It’s the fever, Esther. She delirious. Bathe her forehead again.’