She didn’t take it off, though.

“I need some help first. That’s all.” She tucked her hair behind her ears again. It fell back out again. “I need you to get some food. For me and my dad. And antibiotics. He’s got a bad leg, see? If you get me some food and some antibiotics, I’ll give you your jumper.”

I took another step backwards and tripped over a gravestone. I scrabbled myself back to upright.

“Oh,” she said, “are you OK?”

There was a look on her face, like she was worried about me. Worried I’d hurt myself. She wasn’t, though. She couldn’t be. She was a wanderer. It was just her being deceitful.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said. “I just meant to – I don’t know. Oh heck, I’m hopeless at this, aren’t I?” She took a deep breath in and sighed it out again, big and loud.

“Here, just have the jumper.” She grabbed it from the bottom and pulled it up over her head. She didn’t hold it out or anything, though. She just twisted it in her dirty wanderer hands. “Will you still help me?”

The air was heavy. Hard to breathe.

“Or if you can’t help me, just promise you won’t tell anyone else you saw me?” She clutched the jumper to her chest. Her eyes went shiny. Like when you’re trying not to cry.

Did wanderers cry?

“Promise?” she said.

I nodded my head. Just a tiny bit. So tiny it wasn’t even really a nod at all. And it didn’t really count as a proper promise, did it? Not if it was made to a wanderer.

She threw the jumper gently towards me. It landed on the ground between us. I darted forwards, snatched it away and ran as fast as I could back towards Anderson’s field. I ran all the way to town for the second time that day. Didn’t stop until I got to the allotments.

I bent over and heaved in lungfuls of strawberry-sweet air. Had anyone seen me? Did they know what had happened?

No. There was no one around.

No one except Elsie, crouched down between the rhubarb leaves.

CHAPTER 5

I crashed through the front door.

“Dad! Dad! Listen, I’ve just been—”

“Shush a minute, Magsie.” Dad had peas and potatoes going on the stovetop. “I’m talking to Jed.”

“But I—”

“Wait.” He wiped his hands on a tea towel and hung it over his shoulder. “So, Jed – what happened when you got to Doctor Sunita’s?”

“Yeah, what happened?” Trig was at the table with Jed, chin in his hands, eyes big as sunflower heads. “Is Lindi going to die? She looked dead when Robbie picked her up. Didn’t she, Maggie? She looked dead. Completely dead.”