Ben startled back on the spot. He crossed his torchlight over hers. The darkness closed in on them from either side. Twice the beam wasn’t twice as bright.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘How am I supposed to know?’ she replied irritably.

‘Is that a person?’

Whoever it was, they were standing perfectly still in the centre of the pathway.

‘It’s a woman,’ Chloe said. ‘Look at her shawl. What do you reckon she’s doing out in the dark? Do you think the others have forgotten about her?’

Ben edged a little closer. ‘No, look at her eyes.’

Chloe slapped a hand to her mouth. The scream must been right there, on her lips, but she’d caught it. He couldn’t blame her. Even Ben’s nerves had crawled up his spine with the quick, heavy steps of a beetle.

His knuckles cracked in the silence as they tightened around the torch. He cast its light across the woman’s face. Her blindness glistened like frost. She didn’t react. She couldn’t have.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked, to which her head twitched to face him.

She approached them slowly – like an artist’s sketch forming in the torchlight, ageing with each step as the ravages of time came into focus. The eyes were a horror to behold, drawn to them without sight, and yet looking nowhere else.

‘What’s wrong with her?’ Chloe asked.

The woman cackled at the question, causing them both to wince as the constancy of her advance drew her ever closer.

‘The blind take care of the animals,’ Ben whispered, so low that the old woman couldn’t possibly have heard him.

‘The blind?’ she tittered gummily. ‘Don’t pity me for my eyes, boy.’ The woman inhaled through her nostrils with rapturous glee. ‘There’s nowhere that he won’t find you. The night isn’t yours anymore.’

Even their torches seemed to falter as those words were spoken.

Ben and Chloe parted to let the woman pass between them. She dragged her feet through the dirt, shuffling with the shortest steps as she dissolved into the night. They stared towards the ebbing sound of her laughter, waiting for the silence – and some elusive sense of safety – to return.

‘Come on,’ Chloe said, shivering, ‘the field isn’t far.’

‘Are we not going to talk about that?’ Ben asked, stepping in front of her.

‘No chance. I need to forget that happened if I’m ever to sleep again.’

Ben couldn’t stand still. He was pacing back and forth between the walls on either side, like a bird bouncing against its cage. ‘This place is messed up.’

Chloe just nodded.

‘But hey,’ he said, realising how uneasy she had become, ‘it’s not all bad.’

‘How so?’ she asked, eyebrows furrowing.

‘Oh, come on.’ He chuckled. ‘Blind shepherds? Don’t think for a second that this isn’t going in the report.’