‘Well, there’s a man in the village who’s been trying to make my friend Eli move out of his hut in the woods. He doesn’t want to leave, but the man doesn’t seem to care. And it’s not the only thing he’s done, but everyone seems to be afraid of him and no one is prepared to speak out.’

Her smile disappeared. ‘Listen, Jimmy,’ she said. ‘Men do evil things for many reasons. None of them have anything to do with dragons, or serpents, for that matter.’

‘But why do they do evil things?’

She snorted. ‘It’s about power. Men who feel weak or inadequate feel they have to prove themselves somehow, trying to get power over others and bullying people who can’t fight back.’

‘Like Eli.’

‘Like your friend Eli.’

‘But how can we help him?’

‘By standing up for him,’ she said. ‘By showing the world that you care about your friend. You won’t always succeed, but at least you will have tried. And that’s what matters most.’

20

After writing that chapter I still couldn’t settle, and found myself wandering through the house and garden, trying to work out what to do. Every way my thoughts turned they seemed to reach a dead-end: Eli ousted from his beloved hut, Pa under suspicion from the diocese.

Outside, great bursts of lightning lit up the sky again and again, behind the clouds. No rain, no thunder, no visible flashes, just a sudden brilliant brightness in the western sky, gone in an instant, followed by another, and another. Then I heard thunder: a long, deep rumbling that seemed to shake the ground beneath my feet. A storm was definitely on its way.

What made everything worse was my disagreement with Kit. He was my only ally, the only person I could really talk to and trust, and I hated the fact that we’d parted on ill-tempered terms. What I most wanted to do was run down the lane to the Hall and fall into his arms. He would make everything right, I felt sure.

I should have waited until the following day, of course. But once the idea had lodged itself in my head, I couldn’t dislodge it. Everything now felt terribly urgent. A storm was coming and somehow that galvanised me; Eli had been locked out of his hut and was nowhere to be found. I couldn’t bear to think of him lying in a ditch somewhere, sodden and cold.