“Who’s this an impression of?” asked Nat. He tried to arrange his features into a vampiric leer. In a heavily accented growl, he spoke the words of one of the most feared monsters in literature: “Listen to them, my children of the night, what music they make.”

Woody cocked his wolfish head to one side.

“Hurry up!” shouted Nat. “You won’t be able to speak soon!”

“Er … is it the man from up the road, who helped Mick repair the lawnmower?” asked Woody. “The one with the shoes that look like dirty hamburgers?”

Nat frowned. “Shoes like hamburgers? No, you dope, it was Count Dracula.”

Woody looked hurt.

“Sorry, I forgot,” said Nat, mentally kicking himself for being so stupid and insensitive again. How on earth would Woody know that? Most of Woody’s education had come from TV game shows and soap operas. “Look, don’t worry,” Nat continued. “When things calm down a bit, I’ll teach you to read properly. We could go to the movies and we can …”

Woody interrupted him. “Thanks,” he said softly, “but that’s normal for people. Not Wolven.”

Nat didn’t reply. He realized that what Iona had said had been true. It was madness for Woody to stay in Temple Gurney.

“AAAAAOOOOOOOOOOHHHHAAAAAAOOOOOWWW!”

Woody and Nat froze. This time, it was no echo. The howling was coming from across the valley, from the western side of the wood …

From Helleborine Halt.

Woody sniffed the air. “Wolf.”

“What if it’s that mutant werewolf?” Nat panicked. “What was his name … Scale? The one Iona told us about, the one in my nightmare?”

The howling seemed far away, but how long would it take the owner of the howl to catch up with them? Nat had no wish to find out, and although in Wolven form Woody was braver than a lion, he wasn’t ready to meet the creature from Nat’s nightmare, either. As they raced from the beach, Nat found himself being overtaken. Woody was back on four legs, the last shreds of the morris dancer’s costume streaming out behind him as they ran for home.

Nat had hoped his family would still be at the fairground, but as he and Woody slunk through the back door, he could hear raised voices in the garden. Two of the voices belonged to Mick and Jude. But there was another voice, one he couldn’t identify at first.

He crept over to the open window. Here he was again, listening when he shouldn’t have been. He could see Mick sitting on the swing seat with Apple and Jude, but there was a fourth figure in the garden. A figure in a familiar blue uniform with three stripes on the shoulder. Nat beckoned to Woody, who hauled himself up from the tiles and padded over to the window.