Under cover of the trees, the light was more tentative, dappling the forest floor with shadow.

‘So you and Kit … are you …?’

‘Friends? Of course, darling.’ But she did not look into his eyes. ‘Kit’s been here much longer than I.’

‘How did you find the place?’ Tom persisted.

‘I …’ She looked around, as if she couldn’t quite remember which direction she had to go in. ‘I answered an advert. In The Lady, don’t you know.’

That fitted with what Tom had thought. He changed the subject, saying how much he was enjoying the sun.

She found the right way. ‘We don’t have to go far to find what I’m looking for.’ Zita strode ahead, her dress billowing out behind her.

Tom wondered how much of the land round about was owned by Jack. They’d walked the bounds in … what? About forty minutes. So it could be a good-sized acreage. The sword at his waist felt ridiculous and he wondered what on earth Zita had given it to him for. He would be absolutely no help in a fight of any sort. And if someone took it and turned it on him … He hurried to catch up with Zita, branches catching at him.

He went over the encounter he’d had with Jack and tried to understand it.

This was not normal. Zita was not normal. The wards were not normal. And yet, this wasn’t some weird hippy commune, full of yoga and gurus. This was something else. Quite what it was he had no idea at the moment. One word kept tugging at his mind, and he kept pushing it back, away from him.

Magic.

But there was no such thing, was there?

He could not doubt what he had seen, what he had heard, what he was doing now. What had the wards been, those words, that energy, but magic? What had Zita been doing but magic?

As he walked a few paces behind Zita, he caught sight of a church steeple in the distance, a weathervane on the top of it. There would be people there. If he needed to, he would be able to find someone in the village, someone who had a working phone, and then he would be able to call up Fletch and get back to school.

Zita crouched down at the base of a tree and started to gather some moss with a knife.

‘How can you tell the difference between them?’ asked Tom. ‘They all look the same to me.’

‘They all have their signs,’ she replied, putting the moss into a bag. ‘You gather some too, from that ash tree there. This kind only grows at the bottom of ash trees, for a few weeks in the summer.’ She gave him a bag, and he knelt not far from her. The moss smelled sweet, and he began to enjoy the gentle, repetitive movements of cutting and placing in the pouch.