He wondered if his Mam had been right and the baby really had died. He made up his mind to definitely go again and see if he could talk to her. While thinking over what he would say and ask and how he would get her to answer, he drifted off to sleep, to dream of pale faces surrounded by golden locks.

His Mam was astonished when he volunteered to visit the graveyard again, this time for his father as well, she know that he hated going there with a passion. He had a vivid imagination and cam up with fantastic excuses as to why he couldn’t go. She even sometimes asked him to go, when she could do it herself, just to hear what he would come up with!

She had noticed that he had come every day and spent at least five minutes every time, looking for her and he didn’t go away until he had seen her. She let him see her more and more quickly; as she didn’t want anyone else noticing that he had seen her. She liked it that he come every day for sixteen days; she was beginning to want to talk to him and see him closer up. She didn’t know how to signal to him to get him coming at night instead.

He was running out of reasons to visit the graveyard; he was going to have to come at night instead, if he was going to continue seeing her every day. But he didn’t know how to tell her that he wasn’t coming at daytime but at night. How did you when you couldn’t talk?

As she was climbing out of the attic using the tree that was her bridge to freedom, she though about that boy. He hadn’t come for the last three days and she had cried herself to sleep for the last two nights. He had come to represent a lot to her and now he had gone. She was going for a long ride tonight and she would try to forget him. As she slid down the branch and limped across to the paddocks her mind was on the ride ahead and where she might go. So engrossed in her though she didn’t see the black shadow detach itself from the lane and start to stride across to her.

He was overjoyed. He had waited for two nights in a row and not gone to see her for three days, but she had finally come. He had watched her fumble down the branch and climb down the tree as if she could do it in her sleep. He was shocked; she was limping very badly and could a actually hardly walk. He strode out from the land and started to approach her.

She screamed; someone had caught her by her shoulder and her scream was cut off by a hand. She struggled but just ended up off balance and fell over, the person on top of her. Then she saw him, it wasn’t just anyone, it was the boy. She stopped struggling and trying to scream and he removed his hand from her mouth. She asked him what he was doing and where he had been and who he was and why he looked for her and what he did and where he lived and why he was here and would he please get off her.

He was astonished as the questions spilled out of her. He just continued looking into her beautiful face and stared, he tuned the words out but the melody of her voice filtered in and when it got to a pitch so furious he couldn’t ignore it, he got up and helped her up. He put a finger to her lips and she fell silent, he could feel her heavy and fearful breath on his hand. She still hadn’t got over her fright. He asked her where she had been for the last two nights and told her that he had been waiting for her. This was going to have been his last night because he needed some sleep. She replied rather huffily that she had been sleeping like any normal person would be doing at night-time, and why had he stopped coming in the day he told her and then answered all her previous questions which she had to repeat as he admitted that he hadn’t taken note of them. Then he asked the same of her and was answered in full as by that time she had recovered. He was intrigued by the fact that she was going riding at this time of night and it did cross his mind as to how she would ride with that leg. He decided asking her would not be polite.