There were more. A cheeky one between some ivy, a sly one under the eaves. She took another step, then took the penny out of her pocket. She held it up.

‘I’m leaving this for the Box. I hope that’s all right.’

Seren put the penny down on the stall. She hurried backwards with the Box under her arm; she had a horrible feeling that it would be a mistake to turn her back on the faces.

Then something tiny and cold as a needle touched her arm.

It was a raindrop.

But it hadn’t rained for weeks!

Even as she thought it, a huge downpour began, roaring down on the dim alley, rattling in pipes and gutters, being spat out in fountains by all the gargoyle faces, turning the cobbles into a stream of water. Seren gasped; she turned and fled, and was it the thunder of the rain or were there padding feet on the cobbles hurrying angrily after her?

She was soaked. Her dress clung to her. Her hair was plastered across her eyes, and then small hands came out of the storm and snatched at her hair, grabbed her dress. She gave a shriek and pulled away and yelled, ‘Leave me alone!’ and burst out of the alley into blinding sunlight, and crashed straight into Tomos.

The Box fell on the cobbles.

Seren staggered back.

‘There you are! I’ve been looking everywhere.’ Tomos wore a jaunty neckerchief and his mouth was smeared with toffee. ‘It’s time to see Mamma do her judging. Come on!’ He bent down and picked up the Box and looked at it curiously. ‘What’s this? Trust you to find some old stuff, Seren.’

‘It’s not for me. It’s for the Crow.’ She snatched it back from him. ‘I got it from that stall down there…’

She turned. Her words dried up.

Between the copper kettle stall and the fishy whelks there was just a blank stone wall.

No alleyway.

No gargoyle faces.

No stall.

Not only that, it was sunny and she was completely dry.

Tomos wasn’t listening. ‘Tell me about it later.’ He grabbed her arm. ‘Come on, now, or we’ll miss it all!’

Seren let him pull her away. But she kept tight hold of the Box, and took another look back, puzzled and scared, at where the alleyway should have been.

They had been angry. This was something secret, something They didn’t want her to have.

But it was too late now.

2

Some worrying questions

Iron horseshoes on the door.

Why ask what has gone before?

Next morning Seren sat up and tugged aside the curtain round her bed.

A shaft of bright sunlight was slanting across the darkness of the room, gilding the left paw of Sam the cat, where he lay sprawled out on the dressing table, watching her.

‘Bore da, Sam,’ Seren said sleepily.

It was a quarter to eight by the clock.

She looked down at her clothes on the floor. She had been so tired by the time they got back last night that she had done nothing but tug off her dress and scramble into bed.