Tomos grabbed Seren’s arm. ‘You won’t, Mamma. Anyway, Denzil will advise you.’

Seren turned to run with him, but Denzil caught her sleeve quickly. The small man put his lips to her ear. ‘Be careful, girl. Keep the boy safe. Everyone comes to the Fair. Even Them.’

Seren looked at him, startled.

Then she nodded.

The Summer Fair was a joyous riot of colour and noise. The streets, normally so sleepy, were packed with people. Fairings and sweetmeats and pots and pans and ribbons and honey and jam were being sold at dozens of stalls. There were shooting games and big men smashing a hammer to make a bell ring, tug-o-war, foot races, and, in a tent by the church, poetry being made up and chanted in Welsh. The sound of it fascinated Seren; Tomos had to tug her away. There were competitions for the best flowers and fruit and puddings and pies. Dancing went on at the corners of alleys, and fiddlers played reels and jigs and sipped ale from foaming tankards. In the main square a wooden roundabout creaked, its horses rising and falling, steam gusting from its engine.

‘Shall we go on that?’ Seren said.

Tomos shook his head. ‘No. It reminds me of the hateful Carousel and Them. Let’s look in the mirrors instead.’

Seren frowned, thinking of Denzil’s warning. They were the Tylwyth Teg, the Fair Family. Strange, silvery, immortal beings, They lived underground or in the hills. Twice now They had tried to steal Tomos away, and the Crow too. She looked round, determined. She would keep her eyes and ears firmly open. If They were here, she would spot Them.

‘And don’t worry about the silly old Crow!’ Tomos ran towards the nearest tent. ‘Buy him a fairing! That’ll cheer him up.’

As she ran after him Seren thought that was a good idea, but the Crow couldn’t eat anything and he would certainly never wear a ribbon. Well, maybe she could find something that would bring him out of his bad humour.

But the Fair was so wonderful she soon forgot everything else. She ate two liquorice dabs and a long unwinding stick of sherbet. She bit through the crunchy outside of a toffee apple into the white soft fruit. She threw balls at coconuts and small yellow wooden ducks. She ran screeching through the Hall of Mirrors seeing a whole row of stretched, gross, squat, shrivelled and enormously tall Serens.

She bought a red ribbon for Lily the maid, who had been disappointed not to come, and a gingerbread man for Gwyn the stable boy.

So by the time the church clock struck half past two she was hot and sticky and thirsty and red from the sun. Also, she had lost Tomos.

Suddenly worried, she looked around.

She was in the middle of the market square and a huge flock of ewes was coming through. She stood back between a stall selling copper kettles and some baskets of whelks and cockles that smelled really fishy, but the bleating ewes shoved against her and she stumbled back again, into a sudden space she hadn’t known was there.