MAGS WAS entirely focused on Fleet now. She seemed to know what everyone was saying, and especially where the Stricklands were, where they were going next, everything about them. He didn’t know how she did it; it was as if she even knew what the wind was thinking. And she had been right about the walkers, the roads were crawling with them. The Allardyces were never at home. Mags said that because they didn’t know where Fleet would be, they would try everywhere but the field where she’d first appeared, until the last moment. It wouldn’t be harvested for a while yet, anyway.
She had become almost invisible. She was so brown, and the clothes she was wearing so weathered and faded that she melted into the landscape and became part of it. She had an intense awareness of everything around her, as if she could read the future in the ink-blue silhouettes the sun cast on the leaves, or in the white tyre tracks of cloud far above. And still no one knew where she was, save Robbie. They spent their days walking the fields and woods and lanes, looking, watching, waiting.
These were the hottest days of the year, the heat making them long for the tree-shade, and they lay panting in it like dogs.
‘Remember when we first saw her?’ Robbie said, one afternoon, under trees not far from the beacon, looking out over the Levels. ‘She was so big. And there was so much light.’
‘Yeah,’ said Mags. He could tell she wasn’t listening.
‘Mags?’
‘Yeah?’
‘What was she like?’
‘Fran?’ She stopped to think for a while. ‘She was so fun. On for anything. Had a wild streak, that girl.’
‘Like you.’
‘Different wild. And she could be up, but she had this quiet side, like she’d get really thoughtful and not talk to you. Maybe that was a bad side.’
‘Manic,’ he replied.
‘What’s that?’
‘Kind of up and down. Never in-between.’
‘Well, that’s the way she was.’
‘I like her.’
‘Yeah, you should. She’d like you.’ Mags was lying on her front, weaving grass. Then she looked at him curiously, as if he’d said something she couldn’t quite hear. ‘I’ve been stupid,’ she said.
‘What, about Fran?’
‘No, no.’ She pulled herself up on to her knees. ‘It’s what you said. Light. There was lots of light. It was a full moon.’
‘It was huge.’
‘No, it was full. The full moon. No, wait. The harvest moon. That’s it. The harvest moon. The harvest. D’you get it?’
‘Not really.’
‘The harvest. The time for reaping what has been sown.’
‘What is a harvest moon?’
‘It’s in September. All full moons rise around sunset, but the harvest moon rises faster, so there’s more light around earlier in the evening, and the farmers used to be able to bring in their crops by it.’
‘So what are you thinking?’
‘Not thinking, feeling. Just feeling.’
‘The next full moon, then?’
‘Could be. We’ll watch the field. It’s only a few days away.’
‘Which do you think she’d go for? This one or the harvest?’
‘I think I know which she’ll go for. I think I do. The harvest. But we’ll still watch the field.’
*
So they went back to where it had all begun. But now there was corn growing tall, and they couldn’t see over it or through it.
‘This is insane,’ said Robbie after they’d been there a couple of hours.
The sun had gone down, and the moon was rising. It was very still. Mags and he were making their way like two little spiders around the edge of the field.
Something cracked loudly, in among the trees.
Robbie hugged the ground.
Everything stayed calm. Mags raised herself cautiously.
‘What can you see?’ he breathed.
‘It’s them.’
They lay quiet for a while.
‘They still there?’
‘I think they’ve gone.’
‘They’re not idiots, then.’
‘Yeah, you’re probably right. I don’t think it’s tonight, and neither do they. They think it’s the moon, though, too.’
‘Mags?’
‘Yeah?’
‘You know I’ve got school starting soon?’
‘And your point is?’
‘I won’t be around so much.’
‘That’s okay.’
‘But you’ll be on your own.’
‘So?’
‘You need someone to look after you.’
There was a quiet explosion of laughter.
‘You think you’re looking after me?’
‘Someone’s got to.’
‘Believe me, I don’t need you to do that.’
‘Yes, you do.’
‘Robbie, I know this place like I made it myself. I know every stone and tree, where the cows go when it’s noon in July, which trees were felled that shouldn’t have been and what they did with them, who hates who, who loves who that shouldn’t – d’you see? This is my world. I’m as safe here as I’ll ever be anywhere.’
*
Term started again. Mags seemed despondent, and it wasn’t because of Robbie.
‘It’s gone quiet,’ she said. ‘The walkers have disappeared. As if they’ve forgotten all about it. Maybe they think she’s gone away.’
‘Does she ever?’
‘No, never.’
‘They’ll know that. They’ll know she’s coming.’
Mags didn’t seem impressed, and he didn’t see much of her for days. Sometimes he glimpsed her far away, on top of a hill, tiny against the sky, walking sullenly along, sometimes he caught up with her down by the river, distracted, dreamy and a bit snappy, half in this world, half in a world where he couldn’t follow.
And so they went on waiting, while the moon fattened.