If she stared deep into the landscape, she sometimes glimpsed the shine of Freddie’s hair as he bobbed along the lane below the tall elm trees. Her face was hot with anxiety. Under the stained apron, Annie’s heart was dark with guilt. A woman of your age, Annie. Dependent on a seven-year-old child! But that’s what she was. And only Freddie knew why. Freddie had rescued her when she’d been clinging to the railings outside the Post Office, too terrified to move. He’d led her home on her stone feet, plod by plod, and stilled her trembling with his bright unwavering gaze. On that October afternoon, Freddie’s footsteps were slower and slower as he trudged home from school. His face was purple, half of it a bruise from where Mr Price had thrown a book at him for daydreaming, and the other half a brighter purple from the blackberries he’d been eating. His four pockets bulged with wet beechnuts, and he smelled of autumn. Blisters scorched his small feet from walking a mile to school and a mile home in a pair of wooden clogs.
