Stonewake

Oakengarth, North Yorkshire, 1993. Arya is three, with mud on her knees and a pocket full of stones. Aleksei lives in the grey children's home on Mill Road, keeps a wooden horse in his left pocket, and hardly ever speaks. On their first morning at nursery she gives him the red crayon, and that is that.

At the bottom of Arya's garden is the Holding, the old forest she is not allowed into on her own. Out of it, now and then, comes an old man with a canvas bag and a stick that only touches the ground. He says one thing to Arya's mother that Arya is not meant to hear: seven years.

The years go by in conkers, notes under desk lids and stones on a windowsill. Then, in a week of rain, Arya learns what the seven years are for, and that her mother has been chosen.

She decides not to tell Aleksei.