The field is rectangular. The shorter sides back onto the road at one end, and the woods at the other, and both the longer sides are flanked by more fields. There’s definitely no way through the hedge/fence that runs parallel to the road, and when I get to the end of it and turn right, and start following the longer hedge/fence that leads away from the road and up toward the top of the field (the side that backs onto the woods), it soon becomes apparent that this hedge/fence is just as impassable as the shorter one. It has the same solid thickness of hawthorn, the same three-foot-high wire-mesh fence, and the same deep ditch at its base. And the added problems with this side of the field are that 1) the farther it gets away from the road, the less light it gets from the streetlamps, which means that by the time I’ve gone about twenty yards, it’s so dark I can barely see where I’m going. And 2) even if I do somehow manage to find a way through the hedge/fence, there’s no knowing what awaits me in the field on the other side. It could be just as inescapable as this one. Or just as sheep-infested. Or, even worse, it could have horses in it . . .

Horses.

I can picture them now in the gloom . . . grayed visions in the blackness . . . great long heads, like giant hammers . . . huge chomping teeth . . . venomous eyes . . .

A sudden burst of noise comes from the hedge/fence, the sound of rapid movement, and the shock of it hits me so hard that I stagger backward, with my hands raised to my head (to protect myself from the hedge-crashing horse), and as my booted foot slips on something, I lose my balance and fall over into the snow.

There’s another brief eruption of noise, but this time it’s more of a panicked rustling than a burst, and then whatever it is (and I know now that it’s too small to be a hedge-crashing horse), it scurries off across the field on the other side of the hedge.

As I lie there on my back, my heart hammering in my chest, Ellamay comes back to me.

It was just a rabbit or a badger or something, she says. Maybe a fox. She smiles. Whatever it was though, it wasn’t a monster.

“A fox is a monster if you’re a mouse,” I tell her.

Well, yeah —

“And a mouse is a monster if you’re a tiny insect, and a tiny insect is a monster if you’re an even tinier insect. Everything’s a monster to something.”

Silence.

“Ella?”

She’s gone again.

As I carry on lying there, gazing up into the infinite blackness, I can’t help wondering if Ella’s up there somewhere . . . up among the stars, a thousand million miles away . . . or maybe she’s beyond the stars, beyond everything . . . in a place with no life, no darkness, no light . . . no time, no where or when, no nothing, forever and ever and ever and ever . . .

No . . .

I can’t think about that.

I grab a handful of snow and rub it into my face, and the ice-cold shock does the trick — dismissing the dark thoughts from my mind and bringing me back to reality.

I sit up and look around. It isn’t snowing anymore. The wind’s died away too. The ice-cold air is still and quiet, and a pale slice of moon is showing through the clouds.

I get to my feet, brush myself down, and get going again.