I’m not meant to go alone says Granny, because Shadowmaker is out there and Granny says Shadowmaker might catch me and we’ll not see hide nor hair of me again.

Granny knows everything, she says. And if she doesn’t remember she will look in her big book that stays under her chair at the fireplace and I Must Not Touch.

Granny told me not to go out in the dark except to put the chickens away at dusk. She says Shadowmaker’s out there waiting for me to wander off and has already done for my Daddy but Mother says to hush and not say such things and walls have ears. I haven’t found any ears yet however hard I stare at each and every brick.
Granny says Mother knows nothing as she is just an orphan no-one wanted that Daddy picked up in the city and if she didn’t know how to drive the horses she’d be of no use here but now the men have all gone she may as well stick it out.

Mother and Granny don’t talk much. Mother says it’s because she is too tired to bother with a rambling old woman and just needs to eat and sleep before heading out to work the fields again.
When I am bigger I will help more on the farm but now I just collect the eggs and milk the cow before school and help Granny weeding in the vegetable patch. I’m not allowed out of the garden through the gate to the field though.

I wonder if my Daddy went through that gate to meet Shadowmaker?

to be continued…