Ignoring the warning, Jack offered her more. This time she drank, glugging greedily. Once she had slaked her thirst, she rose stiffly to a sitting position. Through limp strands of her dirty hair her eyes fixed on Jack.

‘You!’ she croaked. ‘You seek one missing!’

Jack almost dropped the water bottle in shock. ‘H-h-how do you know?’

A grim twist of a smile threaded its way across her cracked lips. ‘One sees much on this road … especially when one has little choice.’ She looked down despairingly at her legs in the stocks.

Jack pulled out the locket from under his shirt and showed her the portrait. ‘Have you seen this girl?’ he asked urgently.

‘Ooh, pretty little thing … Jane, isn’t it … no, Judith … no, Jess … yes, Jess!’

Jack’s hands began to tremble with hope. ‘Where is she? Where’s Jess?’

The old woman raised a finger, crooked as a knotted twig. She held it up before Jack’s eyes. ‘When a wise man points at the moon –’ Jack followed her fingertip in an arc through the air – ‘the fool looks at the finger!’

She let out a cackling laugh.

Jack frowned in dismay, while Rose sighed heavily.

‘She’s just playing games with you,’ she said impatiently. ‘Come on – let’s go.’

‘Then how did she know my sister’s name?’ challenged Jack.

‘She guessed it,’ Rose replied, and she pointed at the locket. ‘The letter J is inscribed within the flower engraving on the front.’

Jack looked and saw it now for himself. Annoyed at being duped by a simple parlour trick, Jack shoved the stopper back in the water bottle.

‘Oh, Jack, don’t be so petulant!’ chided the old woman.

‘What!’ exclaimed Jack in shock. ‘You know my name as well?’

‘However far the stream flows, it never forgets its source!’ the old crone answered cryptically.

Jack crouched down closer to her. ‘So tell me, what else do you know? Has my sister passed this way?’

The old woman gave a gap-toothed grin. ‘I know not everyone who travels these roads, but I do know the world has taken much from you. So ponder this on your journey: when you feel furthest away, you’re closer than you think.’

‘Don’t get drawn in by her trickery!’ Rose cautioned. ‘Let’s leave before this witch curses us all!’

The old woman scowled at Rose. ‘A bird may be known by its flight, so why don’t you just fly away!’

‘At least I ain’t bound to the ground like you,’ Rose shot back.

Gazing mournfully at her pinned legs, the old woman sighed. ‘Aye, it’s a cruel fate when they clip the wings of an old bird.’

Akiko knelt down and inspected the padlock and iron clamp holding the top piece of wood in place. ‘It’ll be impossible to get this off,’ she said.

Looking to Yori, Jack asked, ‘Can your chants break them?’