The woman looked everywhere except at Ben. Lips pressed together so tight that they disappeared entirely. Her fingers tugged harder on that imaginary knot. It was a bafflingly childish reaction, as if by averting her eyes, Ben – and the question – would cease to exist.

‘Where’d your friend go?’ she asked, quite obviously changing the subject.

‘I think she was going to look at your church,’ he replied, ‘or whatever’s left of it.’

‘She shouldn’t go there,’ Mary whispered.

‘And why’s that?’

Again, silence. Ben had perhaps naively expected Mary to talk at length with the slightest push. She had understood the questions. She deliberated over her answers. And still she had given him nothing. Whatever information the woman had hidden away, she stored it in a closed book, its binding sealed with a padlock.

‘Were there any stories that you were told when you were growing up?’ he asked, leaning forward. ‘Any stories that you still tell the children?’

‘What kind of stories?’ she asked innocently.

‘Oh, I don’t know. I noticed that all the boys here wear dresses. In many parts of the country this was to fool the fairy folk. The changelings preferred to steal away the boys, you see.’

‘I wouldn’t know anything about that.’

‘You don’t believe in fairies?’ he probed.

‘No.’

‘Are you religious?’

‘No,’ she replied again. ‘The church hasn’t been used for prayer since before I was born.’

‘Do you know what happened here that made the people lose their faith?’

‘No.’

‘Something must have happened, Mary. The church wouldn’t simply abandon its parishioners without a reason.’

‘You ask too many questions,’ she snapped, her agitation breaking out in beads of sweat. ‘You shouldn’t have come here. There are some things that you shouldn’t know. Nobody should.’

‘What kind of things do you mean?’

‘We live here because we have to,’ she replied, clearly frustrated by Ben’s line of questioning. ‘We have no choice. Everyone is safer that way. I don’t think I want to do this anymore. Can we stop now? I’d like to stop.’

So much for his way with people, as Sparling had put it. Ben should have known better than to upset her. He had thrown too many closed-ended questions at the woman and she had taken them like a biblical stoning.

‘I’m sorry, Mary,’ he said, and he genuinely meant it.

An awkward, clenched energy fell between them. Ben had made this mistake in the past; a lesson learned back in his academic heyday but one since forgotten. The woman had locked down her defences.

‘What can you tell me about the bells?’

‘I don’t know anything about any bells,’ she replied, her fists now balled up tight.

‘You didn’t hear them ring earlier?’ he pressed.

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Is someone preventing you from leaving?’ he asked. ‘You can tell me, Mary. Maybe I can help you.’