“See that you do,” he said. “Are you going to be safe on the train journey home to Sheffield? Do you have family members who can meet you from the station?”

Ruby felt Leonie’s body stiffen as the man kept speaking, and the toddler began to let out an almost imperceptible whining sound.

“Is she okay?” asked Diane.

Ruby exhaled. “She’s just tired, I think.” Turning to the male officer, she said, “I’ll be safe. I won’t let her out of my sight. I promise.”

“I could call ahead and have someone escort you home.”

“No, thanks. We’ll be totally fine. Won’t we, kiddo?” She looked at Diane. “I’ve learned my lesson, okay?”

The officer took the social worker aside. When they returned, the man seemed satisfied. He nodded at his colleagues, indicating that they could leave now.

Diane smiled at Leonie, then at Ruby. “I’ve got one myself, a bit older,” she said. “You’d do anything for them, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Ruby, gazing down at the small girl in her arms. “You would.”

She turned and started to walk in the direction of the train station. Each step she took away from the police was a step into a new life, a new existence for them both. Her heels tapped out a mantra that echoed in the street: We did it, we’re free, we did it, we’re free. She picked up the pace, turned the corner, started to run. There was no going back now. Her only choice was to take Leonie and disappear completely.

CHAPTER

6

“Farewell, peerie buddo!” said she to the child, and ran out. She rushed to the shore, flung on her skin, and plunged into the sea with a wild cry of joy. A male of the selkie folk there met and greeted her with every token of delight. And that was the last he ever saw of his bonnie wife.

—G. F. Black, “The Goodman of Wastness,” 1903

ONE HOUR EARLIER

Constance

Friday, December 21

THE WATER IS a living thing. It heaves, the vast surface of it shifting beneath the power of the low-hanging moon, of which only a faint glow can be seen behind thick clouds. At the ocean’s edge, a woman stands, her face toward the horizon. Her feet are bare, boots and socks at the bottom of the hastily dug hole in the beach behind her. Where her skin is exposed to it, the offshore wind numbs her. She likes it, the numb feeling. She wants it to envelop her, for it to chill her body entirely so that she feels nothing at all. Turning back to the hole, she pulls off her parka and drops it in. Then she closes her eyes and takes a long, grateful breath of sea air. The cold salt wind of home.