Emily tore the paper into ever smaller pieces, as one by one they fell to the ground, and she scuffed them away with her feet, wanted them gone.

She had no need to keep the piece of paper intact to find the source—Emily knew the address by heart. It was what was waiting for her there that made her hesitate, made her look to the table, where her sketchbook lay waiting, offering up an alternative.

As she smoothed the pages flat, Emily traced her fingers over another drawing she had been working on, of a girl now grown, cycling through the countryside, with all the possibility of life right in front of her. A girl she had created in this very room when she was no more than a child herself. When she was battered, broken, and unable to talk, but who found another way to give voice to what was inside her soul. Pictures of a tiny heroine who had been stitched into the imaginations of millions of children all around the world, accompanied by the extraordinary words of her grandmother. A girl whose adventures only existed in the mind of someone who was gone. Really gone, leaving behind nothing more than some stupid clue.

But if she didn’t go, if she didn’t follow the demands her grandmother had left, she could pretend it wasn’t so.

Except for the man who’d delivered the letter. He would know. Before long he would figure it out. She had seen the way he looked at her. His mind processing the physical similarities between her and her grandmother. He had seen the framed cover of the first edition, a cover instantly recognizable the world over. It wouldn’t take long for all those dots to be connected.

Once more her grandmother had preempted how Emily would react, knew she would try to hide, to protect herself from the reality of what had happened. She’d made sure there was a witness who would eventually force Emily’s hand.

In those last days before she died, her grandmother had spoken of something left behind from long ago. A secret kept safe, that she wanted Emily to find. It was a game of sorts; a hide-and-seek puzzle so beloved of Catriona Robinson. Follow the clues to find the prize. A chocolate egg, or a tiny wooden door nailed to the side of a tree that she claimed belonged to a fairy. Except this time Emily wasn’t sure if she wanted to play.

The magpie tapped his beak against the biscuit tin. He seemed to be waiting for Emily to make up her mind. Either that or he simply wanted another treat. A swift roll of eyes, a final slurp of caffeine, then back outside Emily went.

Leg tossed over the saddle of her bike, bare feet on pedals, she rode through the village as the wind whispered secrets through her hair. Tiny speckles of pollen touched her skin as she sped along the road.

She felt them staring, heads turning as she went. The bird lady. The silent one. The stranger in their midst, who stood at the back of the church so no one could hear her sing.