“Buisseau,” she said. She felt dazed and a bit sick, because she could see clearly—so very, very clearly—the time she had driven through Buisseau with her parents, on their way to stay with Moune at Armande. They had stopped there for lunch. She remembered because it was the first time she had ever drunk pineapple juice, and to this day still felt the astonishment that something so delicious existed. But now wasn’t the time to talk about pineapple juice and childhood holidays. Lotti, usually so easily caught up by emotion, knew instinctively that this memory went too deep, and that if she talked about the cool sweet juice and its attendant memories—a sunny café terrace in a dusty square, Mama’s white dress, Papa’s straw hat—they would sweep Ben and Sam and everything else away before them.

Ben didn’t need memories, he needed practical solutions.

“Let’s go and talk to Clara,” said Lotti. “She’ll know what to do.”

“Clara’s gone,” said Ben, and pulled Clara’s note from his pocket.

“Gone to London, not sure when I’ll be back,” Lotti read. “Is that all?”

“That’s all.”

“Gone, right when we want her!”

“To be fair, she wouldn’t have known that when she left.”

They sat in silence, feeling betrayed and defeated, as a gentle breeze began to rise.

“We should run away,” said Lotti.

“But where?” asked Ben.

The breeze grew stronger. The woods breathed out the scent of bluebells.

Where will we sail to, Lotti, on the ocean of blue?

And just like that, Lotti knew.

“France?”

Of all the outlandish things Lotti had ever said to Ben, this was the most outlandish yet.

“Yes! To find your brother! If he’s alive …”

“He is alive.”

“But he hasn’t written.” Lotti raised an appeasing hand. “No, don’t get angry, listen. Why hasn’t he written?”

“I don’t know,” Ben muttered.

“Let’s go inside,” Lotti suggested. “I haven’t eaten all day and I need food to be able to think.”

In the cabin, Ben made tea while Lotti searched the food cupboard.

“Maybe Sam doesn’t want to come back,” she said as she searched. “But that seems unlikely, because why wouldn’t he, when there’s you and Elsie and the Sparrowhawk? More likely he’s ill. Injured in the head, lying in some hospital just waiting for you to find him …”

“How?” asked Ben. “How will we find him, when he’s missing?”

With a cry of triumph, Lotti produced the biscuit tin and extracted a handful of Marie biscuits.