And so I left her, closing the door behind me, and found my way back to the stale breath of the kitchen and to the hall where the fires were now cold, and I climbed the stairs. At the top, I steadied myself on the newel post. Above me, the lamps glowed, half asleep, their yellow light spilling dream-like on the corridor. I felt my skin as if it were new and marvelled at how it had held me through all that had been so dreadful but also all that had brought delight. I felt the impermanency of life and the steadfastness of love. I remembered those minutes in the water and the moment that I had heard Clara. I paused and re-imagined her, as she had been, my sister, my friend, my beloved.

The house was quiet now, returned to timbers and mossy tiles, to chimneys blackened by smoke and dust and faded carpets. A house where Mrs Lenister hummed cheerily in the great kitchen and Miss Gillies reigned in quiet but dignified disappointment. A house with generations of secrets and all the heart’s joys and sorrows held only by crumbling walls. I passed through the corridor as if in a dream and to my own room.

Mary was standing at the window waiting for me and I went and stood beside her and gazed out to where the moon cast the shadow of the church across the valley.

‘They are there,’ she whispered.

And finally I saw them, as clear as a reflection in glass: Hettie with her curled hair and pale cheeks, and a boy whose face I knew as well as I ever could without having seen it in the flesh.

Mary leaned into me. I could not draw my eyes from their figures. Occasionally a breeze caught Hettie’s dress, but there was a stillness about them so profound that it did not obey the normal laws of physics.

‘Hettie and William,’ Mary said, laying her cheek against me, and I slipped my arm around her.

‘Hettie and William,’ I repeated, but as I watched, their figures grew thinner, becoming more like the bending grass and wind, more like the shape of the sea behind, more like the tussocked ground, until finally, the ridge stood empty, but for the blazing wonder of the moon.

Acknowledgements

So many people have helped bring The Whistling from its first inception to the final product.

Firstly, and as always, I want to thank my treasured friend, wonderful writer and astute beta reader, Anita Sloan, for all her support and for the help that she has given at every stage of my writing journey and beyond. I cannot imagine writing without the outlet of our friendship and encouragement.

Many thanks to the fabulous Giles Milburn of the Madeleine Milburn Agency who loved and believed in The Whistling from the start and who secured a deal with my dream publisher.