LITMIR.BIZ

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      “You can’t,” he said. “I’m going on my own.”

      “Don’t be silly. You made enough noise going through the trees to wake the whole Starry, and you left a trail a blind man could see. If I come with you, at least we have a chance of getting back. Not much of a chance, mind you.” Cati seemed almost cheerful about the prospect.

      “Come on then,” she said. “Might as well get it over with.” And set off at a crouch, moving fast and silent. Owen had no choice but to follow her along the riverbank.

      A few minutes later he thought he had lost her, then almost tripped over her. Cati was squatting on the ground.

      “Careful,” she hissed. “Get down here.” She had a twig in her hand. “Look.”

      Owen squinted in the darkness. He could just about see the two parallel lines she had drawn in the earth.

      “This line is the river,” she said, “and this one is the Harsh. We’re in between, here. And the place where your house used to be is here, just in front of their lines. We can get to it, if we’re really quiet and really lucky. But you have to do what I tell you, all right?”

      Owen nodded dumbly. He hadn’t really thought through what he had set out to do, and now he was feeling foolish and headstrong. Cati had called him a stupid boy and he was starting to feel like one.

      “Let’s go!” Cati said. He followed her, moving slowly now. They turned left and started to climb the hill towards the Harsh lines. There was more cover than he had expected. Where once there had been open fields there were now deep thickets of spruce and copses of oak and ash trees. Progress was slow. Cati whispered that there might be patrols about, and more than once she glared at him as he stood on a dry twig or tripped over a low branch. He did not recognise anything in the place where he had once known every tree and ditch, although sometimes he stumbled over something that might have been the crumbling foundation of an old field wall.

      After what seemed like hours, Cati turned to him and held her finger to her lips. They stepped into a clearing – a patch of low scrub. With a start, Owen looked around him. There was no real way of telling, but his heart said there could be no doubt; he was standing in the place where his house had been.

      Was that flat piece of ground with saplings growing in it the place where the road had been? And was that young sycamore the same gnarled tree that had stood outside his bedroom window? Owen moved forward carefully until his foot struck something. Pushing back the vegetation he found the remains of a wall. He moved along the wall until he reached a corner and then another corner. It was the right size and shape as his own house. In fact, he was standing underneath the window to his own room, if it had been there. The room with the model hanging from the ceiling, and the guitar, and the battered trunk he had stood on to climb out of the window.

      “I don’t understand,” he whispered. “If time is going backwards, how come the sycamore tree is getting younger, but the house is getting older? Surely the house would turn back into bricks and stuff.”

      “Living things get younger as time goes backwards,” Cati said, “but things built by man just decay. It has always been like that.”

      Owen began to notice that the grass and weeds were criss-crossed with scorch marks, and that the leaves of low-hanging trees were blackened and dead. Cati reached up and broke off a leaf which crumbled in her hand.

      “The Harsh have been here,” she whispered fearfully, “searching for something by the look of it. We have to go.”

      But Owen wasn’t ready. He moved his foot and something clanked against it. He put his hand down into the undergrowth and groped around until his hand closed on an object. He held it up. It was the hand mirror that his mother used when she brushed her hair. The brass back was tarnished and the glass was spotted and milky in places, but it was the same mirror, and as he looked at it, he could picture his mother brushing her hair, her lips pursed, whistling tunelessly to herself. The glass was becoming yet more faded, until he realised that his eyes had misted over.

      Cati said something, but he didn’t hear her. And he was only barely aware of the cold that started to steal over him. It wasn’t until he heard a faint crackling that Owen glanced up at a small twig which hung in front of him. As he looked, it seemed that hoar frost crept up the leaf from the tip, then to another leaf and then another, until the stem itself froze and cracked with a gentle snapping sound as the sap expanded.

      Owen looked around. The crackling sound was caused by dozens of leaves and twigs snapping in the same way. He turned to Cati, but she was staring off into the trees and her face was a mask of fear. He followed her terrified gaze. Far off, but moving inexorably closer, were two figures, both white, both faceless, and seeming to glide without effort between the trees. Cati’s voice when it came was no more than a whimper.

      “The Harsh,” she said. “They’re here.”

       CHAPTER FIVE

      The cold seared Owens lungs. Somehow he knew that the Harsh were talking to each other in mournful voices full of desolate words that were just out of earshot. The pitch of the voices rose to make a noise like the howling of wolves being carried away on an icy wind and Owen wondered if they had been spotted.

      “Come on,” he said to Cati in an urgent whisper. “Run!” But it was no good. She seemed to be paralysed with terror. “Please, Cati,” he said. “I think they’ve seen us.”

      “No,” she moaned, “they don’t see well. They can smell us though. They can smell the warmth.”

      Owen grabbed Cati by the arm and hauled her to her feet. She stumbled after him. The Harsh were moving sideways, slipping through the trees. They were going to cut Owen and Cati off from the river. Cati wasn’t resisting him, but she wasn’t helping either. Owen thought he could hear the voices again and he felt a chilly dread steal over him, a sense that things were lost and that there was no point in running. He realised that this must come from the Harsh and was why Cati was paralysed with terror.

      “Come on, Cati,” he urged. “You’ve got to fight it.” Owen started to run, dragging her behind him. He could no longer see the two Harsh, but when he stopped for a moment he could hear the gentle crackle of frost attacking twigs and leaves to his right. It was only minutes to the river, but the trees and undergrowth made progress slow. Several times Cati fell and would have lain there if Owen hadn’t forced her to her feet again, and all the time he felt the cold dread stealing over him, weighing down his limbs so that it was an effort to lift his feet.

      Suddenly, Owen and Cati broke free into a clearing which seemed to lead down to the river. Owen turned. Less than fifty metres away he saw the two Harsh and stopped. The force of their presence dragged at him. Cati sank to her knees as Owen turned towards them. The Harsh made no effort to move nearer. Icy vapour from the frozen ground at their feet curled round them so that they seemed to float in the air. Owen’s gaze was drawn to the places where their faces should have been; the blank, white spaces. But there seemed to be a mouth to whisper cruel and seductive words, and eyes which bored into him and demanded surrender.

      In the distance, Owen heard a shout and knew that the defenders on the other side of the river had seen them. There was a crash and a burst of blue flame close to the river and then another one, but the Harsh did not stir. With one last desperate effort, Owen tore his gaze away. He reached down and caught Cati under the arms. Half dragging, half carrying her, he stumbled down the slope towards the river. Though he dared not look around, he knew that the Harsh had not moved. There was another burst of blue flame and Owen heard men’s voices shouting encouragement to them. Even Cati seemed to hear and forced herself to run towards the river. They were just short of the water now and Owen realised they had to cover more ground upstream to reach the log crossing. He risked a glance backwards – the Harsh had still not moved. They were almost clear.

      Suddenly, he felt Cati slow and stop and sink to

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