Dad chooses this very moment to come into the kitchen from the garden. “Lizzie! Don’t talk to your mother like that! It’s very rude.”

“Well, I’m sick of being told who I can and can’t be friends with.”

Mum gives an exasperated sigh. “I’m not telling you you can’t be friends with her. I just think you need to widen your circle, that’s all.”

Half an hour later, I’m still sulking about this conversation when I see Alice appear at the foot of our driveway. She’s wearing her sister’s denim jacket again, the one with the embroidered flowers on the sleeves. And there’s something different about her hair. She’s put it up. I’d like to put mine up like that, but it’s not long enough. Mum likes me to keep it short because it’s “easier to manage.” Except it’s not. It just sticks out at weird angles and looks stupid and ugly.

I grab the bottle of diluted orange squash I prepared earlier, plus the four flapjacks I’ve swiped from the cake box and wrapped in tinfoil.

“Bye, Mum, see you later.”

“Bye, darling,” she calls out from the kitchen. “Do be careful, won’t you? Don’t talk to any strangers.”

Mum would be even more worried if she knew about The Walk and how isolated it is. She thinks we just wander down to the local park.

—

It takes us roughly a quarter of an hour to reach the turnoff that leads to Tippet Lane and the public footpath. Our favorite ponies are out in the field today and we stop to stroke their noses and feed them handfuls of long grass on our open hands. Alice seems quieter than normal. As if there’s something on her mind. I don’t like to ask her what it is in case it’s something to do with her mum’s depression. It usually is. Although she doesn’t look sad exactly, just…mysterious.

I pass her a flapjack and tell her about Mum wanting me to spend more time with Elizabeth Staunton.

Alice pulls a face. “Isn’t her dad a vicar or something?”

“No, he’s a lay preacher.”

Alice makes a little snorting noise. “Whatever that is.”

“It’s someone who occasionally leads the service but who isn’t a formally ordained cleric.”

Now Alice is giggling. “God, Lizzie, you sound like Mrs. Bentham.”

I nudge her in the ribs with my elbow. “I do not.”