It’s hard to leave in the morning. I stare at myself in the mirror for a moment, thinking of Nan’s old glamour spell and whether there are features I should be hiding, but I can’t see anything out of the ordinary: brown hair, brown eyes, round face. Me.

I huff at myself and flit down the stairs, hastily undoing charms to get out of the door and the gate, then whispering the familiar words to restore them behind me. Then I charge off down the lane on my own, for the first time, while Peg flutters and spirals over my head demanding to know what I’m doing, chirping about duties and responsibilities. He’s so panicked, it would be easier – kinder – just to forget the whole thing.

But if I do that now, it’ll never happen. I’ll just spend my whole life trapped in the house. I look back at our home, glowing pink in the early morning light, nestled between folds in the foothills that lead to Cloudfell Mountain, where all things are wild. Winterspell Forest snakes from the moorland that borders our garden and makes a broad swathe around the mountain, and even from here, I can see the sparks and the sweeping shadows that mean something in there is having a good old fight.

‘Stella, please!’ Peg says, fluttering next to my right ear as the lane gets wider. ‘Where are you going? Please stay! What will I say when Nan asks after you? What about the spiders?’

‘You can just tell her the truth.’ I sigh. ‘I’ve gone to school. She’ll work it out anyway. And I’m not going to stay just because you’re weird about spiders. I don’t know why you’re so scared of them.’

‘They’re itchy,’ he says darkly. ‘And they don’t follow the rules. They shouldn’t be able to get into the house at all with all your wards set. And you won’t be here to get rid of them! You’ll be at this school of yours.’ He flies faster so that he’s in front of me, a blur of indignation. ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this, after all those discussions – all those times she said no! What if you don’t come back, Stella? What if it swallows you up, and you never come home?’

‘I will come home, lovely Peg,’ I say, holding up my hands and cupping them around his tiny warm hum. ‘I promise.’ Dark eyes stare into mine and see everything in an instant; there is no hiding from Peg. ‘Do you see?’

‘I see you give your promise honestly,’ he says, breaking away from me with a huff. ‘Can’t account for chance, though!’ he calls back, heading back towards the house.

I adjust my bag on my shoulder and turn my back on home, heading towards the river path and the town that creeps up slowly from isolated old houses to small redbrick terraces, to the main roads of towering grey.

I’ve never done it without Nan, and we haven’t done it for so long. It feels colder and stranger now, and the pedestrians I pass all have their heads down, swaddled in scarves and hats. It’s still early, and the sky is misty with fine rain. I pull up my hood. Soon, I’ll be at school. And the other kids will notice I’m new, and I’ll have to smile and talk and be human, and I really, really wanted that – but right now, it’s a fizzy kind of terror that makes my feet go faster, over cracked roads and past a noisy construction site where vast yellow machines dig their teeth into the cold, dark earth.

I keep to the shadows as I cross the town streets, my head down, feet quiet on the slippery pavements. Cars swoosh by through the puddles, and the bakery on the high street is already open, its blue sign gleaming. The smell draws me in, and before I know it, I’m standing in the doorway, wishing I’d brought some money with me. I ate porridge and packed my lunch this morning, but it’s just a yellow pear, a carrot and a piece of cured sausage, and suddenly I’d do pretty much anything for a hot pasty, or one of the raisin-studded buns on the shining glass counter.

A couple of men brush past me on their way out, clutching paper bags. They don’t appear to register me, but the woman behind the counter stares, her brow furrowed.

‘Sorry,’ I say, taking a step back. We don’t shop here. I shouldn’t have stopped. I shouldn’t be here at all. I should go home now. Feed the chickens, because Peg will probably forget, and curl up with a book by the fire. Why would anyone want anything else?

‘Hang on,’ says the tall fair-haired woman. ‘What did you fancy, lovely?’

‘Oh, nothing . . . I, um. It smelt good.’ I force a smile. ‘I’m just . . . heading for school. It’s my first day.’ I clench my fists in my pockets. It is my first day. I am doing this.

‘Ah,’ she says. ‘A bit of nerves, then. I thought you looked worried. You’ll be fine. They get all sorts at that school – some real characters . . . You don’t need to worry.’

‘Thank you,’ I manage. ‘I should go.’

‘Wait a minute,’ she says, drawing my eyes up. There’s a sparkle in her blue eyes that makes me wonder, just for a second, if she has a little magic. Some people do. A bit of fae blood, passed through generations, or an affinity with the words in books of magic. The closer you are to fae, the more you open your eyes to it and the more you can do. That’s what Nan says, anyway. ‘You can have a teacake, if you’d like.’

‘Oh, but I didn’t bring any money,’ I stammer.

‘That’s why I didn’t say buy, my dear,’ she says, shaking her head. She reaches out and plucks one of the buns from the top of the pile on the counter. ‘Call it a first-day treat; you look like you could use one. Horrible out there today, and that forest was fair howling last night.’ She shivers. ‘I think I’ll have one too, come to that. I’ll toast it for you. Butter?’

‘Um. Yes, please.’

She cuts two of the buns in half and slides the pieces into a gleaming toaster. Then she thrusts her hands into massive oven mitts and turns to rearrange the trays of pastries in the oven on the back wall. I watch her, shuffling my feet and hoping it won’t make me late. When the toaster pops, I jump half out of my skin. She shakes her head at me with a little smile, removing the mitts and buttering the teacakes with a practised hand.

‘Here,’ she says, putting mine into a paper bag and handing it to me. Her eyes sparkle again as she takes a bite of her own. ‘That’ll get you warmed up. Have a good day, lovely.’

‘Thank you,’ I say, past a little lump in my throat.

She nods, and I back out of the shop, clutching the bag between my cold hands. I hold it like that for a couple of streets, and only when the school looms into view do I take my first bite. I can’t believe I’m actually here. The teacake tastes as good as it looks, and it soothes me while I loiter on the edge of the pavement, getting up the courage to make the next move.