There’s a broken jetty on the edge of the lake. An old rowing boat bobs beside it, rocking from side to side in the breeze. Thud, thud, thud. The noise makes my skin prickle and I hurry towards the house.

It’s bigger up close, an intimidating bulk that looms above me like a great ship. The windows are dark and caked in mud and there’s a thick wooden door straight ahead of me with a heavy brass knocker in the centre. The sign I saw from the car is thick with dirt and grime. I step forward and wipe it with the back of my hand then read the name, written in what looks like a child’s handwriting.

Rowan Isle House. This is it. This is the house.

I half walk, half run back to the car. Thankfully Joe is still fast asleep in the back. I open the door on the driver’s side and slump into my seat. I should just turn on the engine and get the hell out of here. That would be the sensible thing to do. But then I think about what I’ve done and how angry Mark will be. I can’t go back there. Not to that hell. I try to think of other options. Hotels. B&Bs. But that’s a short-term solution and with the cost of rooms my money would run out after a few days. I have no option. No other way out.

Then I twist round in my seat and look at my little boy sleeping, his soft, fair eyelashes peeking out from behind a curtain of golden curls. I love him so much it hurts. I’m his mother and I have to keep him close, have to protect him now.

2

Soldier

Rowan Isle House, 2002

This will be my first entry in this book. I’ve been given it to record my progress as an elite soldier. You may think that if I’m a soldier then I must live with other soldiers in a camp or out in the desert where people drop bombs. But I’m not like other soldiers. For a start I’m not a grown-up, I’m a girl. I have black hair and black eyes and I live in a big old house that looks out on to a lake. It’s not a pretty house, not like Misselthwaite Manor or Green Gables, the houses that I read about in the books I get from the mobile library. It doesn’t have clean white shutters or fancy furnishings. It’s a dark house with old wooden beams and stone floors. We don’t have much furniture either, only the very basics. But then Sarge says that’s all we need.

Sarge is my dad but I call him ‘Sarge’ because that’s what he was when he was in this thing called the SAS. His real name is an OFFICIAL SECRET, though I’ve told him that I’m good at keeping secrets and I won’t tell.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. The house. Well, I’ve lived here all my life so it’s all I’ve ever known. And even though I like reading about pretty houses in my library books I wouldn’t swap this one for the world. It may not look like much but we make it cosy, especially in the winter when Sarge brings out the old animal skins. I like sitting in front of the fire with the skins across my feet while Sarge reads me my favourite book: The Wind in the Willows. Those are the best times. When it’s freezing out and we’re warm inside listening to the tales of Ratty, Toad, Mole and Badger, my best friends. How can you be friends with them, you may ask, when they’re not real? But, you see, that’s the thing, Sarge makes them real, and has done since I was small. When he’s reading the bits with Badger he puts on his glasses and makes his voice all low and serious, and in my head I can see the old badger as clear as anything. I see him with a book in his hands because he’s clever, Badger, or ‘well read’ as Sarge likes to put it.