She spent the whole time feeling tired, but she was growing stronger every day, and was able to walk further without her legs feeling like they were going to crumble. At least Scarface had good food. The best she’d eaten since she’d moved out of Waitrose all those weeks ago. There were eggs every day, sometimes a chicken. Sometimes animals Scarface had trapped. Rabbits and ducks and pigeons. Sometimes fish. Scarface had nets and traps all over the place in the lakes and rivers. He also had stores in another barn. There were big sacks of flour, and dried beans, a pile of potatoes, and onions hanging up.

When they were out, he picked lots of wild leaves and what looked like weeds. They tasted bitter, but Ella chewed them and swallowed them down because she knew they were good for her. Scarface even made a sort of flat, hard bread.

Ella was beginning to wonder if this was how her life was going to be from now on. Just him and her, not ever seeing another child again. Never having a proper conversation again. It wasn’t too bad. She felt safe with old Face-Ache. He knew how to look after himself and how to look after her. But she did feel lonely and bored a lot of the time. She cheered herself up by reading some of the books on his shelves. She never saw him read; instead he would sit by himself for hours and hours, just staring at nothing.

And then one day they saw some other children.

Ella and Scarface were returning from a hunt and it had been a big waste of time. They hadn’t seen any grown-ups, not even a scarecrow, and in the end Scarface had given up. They were a long way from the farm and it was starting to grow dark, so they’d turned and headed for home. Ella was looking forward to getting back: they always had something warm to eat, usually soup of some sort. Scarface was always cooking up chicken bones and stuff. Ella was picturing the two of them sitting by the fire as the smoke went up through the hole in the roof, getting nice and warm and cosy. Like how her mum had used to make her a mug of hot chocolate when she came home from school in the winter.

These thoughts had kept her going, and they were nearly at the edge of the woods when Scarface froze, as suddenly as if someone had paused a DVD. One moment he was walking along and the next he was still as a statue, in a sort of half-walking position. He stayed there like that, one hand on Ella’s chest to stop her moving. Then, without any warning, he quickly pulled her to the ground. They lay there, peering out from behind some dead, scratchy brown bracken.