The plan I’d agreed with Mum was that she’d call me on my cell phone every five minutes — to make sure that I was okay and to let me know that she was okay — and that she’d also call me when she got to Shirley’s, no matter what she found when she got there.

The first phone call went ahead almost as planned.

“Elliot?”

“Mum?”

“Can you . . . shhhkkorr . . . me?”

“What?”

“. . . kahshhh . . . you hear me?”

The connection kept going crackly and cutting out, and Mum was having to shout to make herself heard above the roar of the wind as well, so I could only make out parts of what she was saying.

“. . . shhhkkorr . . . you okay?”

“Yeah. Where are you?”

“. . . shhhkkk . . . kaaahh . . . kahshhh . . . village . . .”

“What?”

“. . . go now . . . kaaahh . . . signal . . . kahshhh . . . later . . .”

“What? Mum? Are you there? Hello?”

She’d gone.

We’d spoken to each other, though, that was the main thing. We’d let each other know we were okay. And now all I had to do was wait for the next call.

But it never came.

Shirley’s house is the first on the right as you head up into the village. I’ve only ever walked up there a couple of times, and that was with Mum a long time ago. At that time, she was still following the advice she’d been given — by almost everyone — that the best way for me to get over my fears was to face up to them. She hated making me do it, and she soon realized that — for me — it was actually the worst thing to do, but she didn’t know that then.

But although I’ve only physically walked up to Shirley’s a few times, I’ve made the cyber-journey countless times on my laptop — studying the satellite view, zooming in and out on Google Earth, following the route step by step on street view, calculating times and distances . . .

I do this for every journey Mum makes. I need to know where she is, how far away she is, and how long it’ll be before she gets back.

Which is why I know that:

1) the distance between our house and Shirley’s is 527 yards.

2) the average human walking speed is roughly three miles per hour.

3) so normally it would take Mum about six minutes to walk up to Shirley’s.

But today wasn’t a normal day.

Even if the snowplow had been through, and the worst of the snow had been cleared from the road, the conditions out there were still going to be pretty bad, and it was bound to take longer than usual for Mum to walk up to Shirley’s. I doubted she’d make it in under ten minutes. It was probably going to be closer to fifteen minutes, or even longer. But as long as she kept calling me every five minutes, as long as I knew she was okay, and as long as I knew she was still on her way . . .

I wasn’t too worried at first when the second five minutes had passed and she still hadn’t called. It probably doesn’t mean anything, I told myself. She’s probably just lost the signal on her phone or been distracted by something or maybe her hands are so cold now that it’s taking her a bit longer to get the phone out of her pocket . . .

I stared at the phone in my hand, willing it to ring.

A minute passed.

Two minutes . . .

Three.

Now I was worried.

Four.

More than worried.

My hand was trembling as I pressed the speed-dial key and put the phone to my ear.

The connection went straight to voice mail.

I ended the call and tried again.

It went straight to voice mail again.

“Mum?” I said after the beep. “Where are you? What’s happening? Why aren’t you answering your phone?”

I ended the call again and immediately called Shirley. Her cell phone went straight to voice mail too, and when I tried her landline, all I got was the empty crackle and hiss of a dead line.

I was desperate to try Mum’s phone again, but I forced myself to wait. She might be trying to call me now, and if I kept calling her all the time, she’d never get through. I sent her a text — r u ok mum? pls call me x — and then I just sat there, staring at the phone . . .

Staring, waiting . . .

Hurting.

Another five minutes passed.

I called Mum again and left another shaky-voiced message.

One forty-five came and went, and the sickening terror just grew and grew, until at some point my physical self couldn’t cope with it anymore, and it made the decision to shut me down.

I couldn’t do anything then.

Couldn’t move, couldn’t think. Couldn’t feel. All I could do was sit there in a senseless stupor, my mind in a trance, barely even conscious of reality . . .

Elliot?

Ellamay’s voice was a long way away.

Elliot!

A bit louder, a bit closer.

ELL!! EE!! OTT!!

“You don’t have to shout,” I muttered. “I’m not deaf.”

Never mind deaf, she replied. I thought you were dead.

It took me a while to drag myself out of the stupor, and when I did finally manage it — with a lot of help from Ella — the fear it had been hiding me from came back with a vengeance. It was as if I’d been anesthetized, unable to feel any pain, and now the anesthetic had worn off, and the pain had come back again. The pain was fear, and I could feel it stabbing into every molecule of my body.

But at least I had my self back.

It was agony, but it was me.

We need to get going, Ella said.

“I know.”

I closed my eyes, picturing Shirley’s house in my head, then I zoomed out and pictured the journey between our house and hers.

527 yards.

It’s not far, Ella said encouragingly.

“It is if you’re really small.”