that led them into a farmer’s field.
‘Oh, you know,’ Daisy replied in her usual carefree manner. ‘Who knows where we’ll end up? Don’t you remember how mucky we used to get?’
Ryan did, and suddenly he felt a little foolish for donning a pair of expensive white trainers for their jaunt. On more than one occasion in the past he had returned from an adventure with Daisy soaking wet and caked in mud from head to foot. Usually it was from trying to navigate his way across a bog using logs or stepping stones, or from a failed attempt at jumping a stream. One place in particular was responsible for most of the scoldings he had received from his mother, and that was where they were now heading.
‘I think I brought the wrong shoes,’ he grinned, stepping off the stile gingerly onto the only patch of dry ground in the vicinity.
‘You do remember why they call it Snake Lake?’ replied Daisy, happily hopping down into the mud.
‘The ‘Snake’ part, or the ‘Lake’ part?’ he asked.
‘Well, we never did find any snakes in it,’ said Daisy as they negotiated the mire. They began walking alongside the hedge that skirted the edge of the field, which led away downhill with a view across the vale stretching out before them. In the distance the snaking form of the bypass could be seen carving its way through the hills, its presence betrayed by the glinting bodies of the cars passing along it. It was the only man-made thing in sight.
‘Do you still come down this way then?’ asked Ryan, kicking at a bit of flint that was sticking out of the earth. It was a bit larger than expected and he grimaced as he stubbed his toe.
‘Yes, all the time,’ Daisy giggled. ‘It holds so many happy memories and even now it remains pretty much our little secret. No-one seems to go down there, so bits of it are quite overgrown now.’
‘Oh, right,’ said Ryan thoughtfully.
There was a short pause, then Daisy asked, ‘So, what happened when you went back last night? Was everything all right?’
Ryan gave a rueful smile. The subject had to crop up eventually.
‘I was going to ask you the same thing,’ he replied. ‘I haven’t heard anything from Sophie this morning.’
‘I think she was fine,’ said Daisy. ‘But I woke up before either she or Jack Thomas did.’
‘Did anything happen to you once I left?’
‘No, it was pretty uneventful. Once I’d closed off the passageway I came over a little faint. I think it was because my body was dying to wake up, but couldn’t. Sophie and Jack carried me back down the tunnel – you did pick the right one – but unfortunately the cable car was an absolute wreck, so we just had to sit and wait it out in that cold, dark station. Aside from feeling faint I was also sick with worry for you. I wish you hadn’t left us like that.’
‘Yeah, sorry about that. As it turns out though, I think I made the correct choice. That would be two on the trot for me, which must be a record.’
He grinned at Daisy, who smiled sweetly back but seemed to be expecting more from him. Ryan wasn’t quite sure what to say about Tristram, so he stalled for time.
‘You guys were all okay though?’ he asked lamely.
‘I think so. Sophie was very upset and Jack spent most of the time comforting her while we were waiting.’
‘So they just left you on your own?’ asked Ryan, doubly annoyed by the fact that Jack was unintentionally muscling in on his territory.
‘Pretty much,’ shrugged Daisy. ‘It’s okay though.’
‘It’s not really,’ replied Ryan. ‘It’s a bit out of order. You had to dance with one of those maniacs too.’
‘Don’t remind me,’ said Daisy with a shudder. ‘Anyway, you still haven’t told me what happened when you left.’
The two of them had stopped by a gap in the hedgerow that led into an area of woodland. Ryan sagged and offered for her to go first.
‘Okay,’ he said reluctantly. ‘But you may not like it Dizz.’
‘What, less than that dance?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Oh, well you can’t not tell me now.’
‘Right then.’
Ryan proceeded to tell her how he had battled his way back up the corridor and made it to the ante-room. Then he described all he had seen and done in the great hall, up until the point Billy and Rex had arrived. For once he had no inclination to exaggerate things; they were already bad enough and he was still uncertain as to the full extent of the part he had played in events.
When he reached the end of his tale, Daisy stopped on the narrow trail they were following and turned to face him. They were standing in the middle of a sea of bluebells, with the trunks of the trees rising from their midst like the masts of sinking ships. And yet despite being surrounded by such beauty, Daisy’s face had lost its radiant glow, giving the scene a rather haunting mood.
‘So, Tristram…’ she started, trailing away and leaving it as a question she wasn’t sure she wanted an answer to.
Ryan was desperate to lie to her and tell her that everything was going to be all right. She was just too sweet and kind to be burdened with bad news. But as her deep, kind eyes implored him, he knew that any falsification would be picked up in an instant.
‘I don’t know,’ he said honestly. ‘He looked pretty bad, Dizz. But that was a dream, and I have no idea how that relates to the real world. After all, we’ve not even been Dreamweaving a week.’
She gave him a sad smile.
‘But you saved him,’ she said.
Ryan frowned. He hadn’t meant for it to sound that way. He wasn’t quite sure what he had done.
‘Err, I’m not sure. Maybe…’
‘Well, hitting those horrible men must have had some effect on the way things turned out. You said yourself; as soon as it happened the room turned back up the right way and Billy and that man arrived.’
Ryan smiled.
‘Now you put it that way, I guess you may be right. Do you think me hitting them put them off their Dreamweaving?’
Daisy laughed, and suddenly the whole wood seemed to brighten.
‘I think it might have. If someone came after me with a baseball bat, I would probably have a bit of trouble managing my thoughts. I struggle enough as it is.’
‘No you wouldn’t,’ replied Ryan. ‘You did a great job closing off that passage. I didn’t see Sophie helping us out.’
‘Oh. Well, thank you Ryan.’
They had started walking again and, though he could not see her face, Ryan could swear that she was blushing. That was one apiece.
Suddenly the path opened out and they were standing on the edge of a large bowl, with a scattering of trees and patchy vegetation on its slopes. At the bottom was a pool of stagnant water, green with algae and surrounded by a border of thick, squelchy mud; Snake Lake.
‘Here we are,’ smiled Daisy. ‘Is it how you remember it?’
‘Oh wow,’ said Ryan, running his hands through his thick mop of hair. ‘God, it’s been so long since I’ve been here Dizz, I really didn’t know what to expect. It’s just how it always was. Oh, apart from that shopping trolley over there. How the hell did that get here?’
Already his mind had flicked on a long-unused switch that was recalling a huge archive of happy memories. He began sketching out a number of ways of retrieving the trolley.
‘Like I said; hardly anyone comes here, but people occasionally find it,’ said Daisy.
‘Yeah, but how many happen to have a trolley to hand when they do? The nearest supermarket is miles away. Do you reckon people travel around with a stock of them in the back of a van, just so they can find random places to put them?’
‘I really don’t know,’ Daisy laughed. ‘Do you think we can get it out?’
At that moment Ryan’s mobile phone vibrated in his pocket. He flicked through the message and gave a sigh of relief.
‘Soph’s all right,’ he said. ‘I don’t think she wants to go back to the Isle, but apart from that she’s okay.’
‘That’s good,?
?? said Daisy. ‘I told you she’d be fine. So, how about this trolley?’
Ryan had already regressed to a wide-eyed, adventurous seven-year-old. He looked at her with a long-lost glint in his eyes.
‘Let’s do it,’ he grinned.
The trolley was stuck nose first in the bog. It was in the really gooey mud, right next to where the water began. Daisy and Ryan made their way down to the edge of the mire and stared at it for a while, contemplating their plan of attack.
‘Do you think you can wade out there and attach something to it?’ asked Ryan, looking at Daisy’s boots.
‘Maybe,’ she replied thoughtfully. ‘It looks pretty squishy though. I’ll probably sink without trace.’
‘You?’ scoffed Ryan. ‘There’s nothing of you Dizz. You could probably make it across the whole thing without sinking.’
Daisy laughed loudly.
‘I’m not Jesus, Ryan. I’ll give it a go though. What do you want me to attach?’
Ryan looked around for something useful. Then a thought struck him.
‘Hey, is that old rope swing still around?’
‘Yes, but it’s out of reach.’
Daisy led him a short way round the edge of the bog to where a large tree sat, stretching its hefty boughs out over the mud. Attached to one of them was a piece of old, blue rope with a thick stick tied to the free end. Unfortunately some spoil-sport had managed to get it caught between the main branch and the tree-trunk, well out of reach.
‘What idiot’s gone and done that?’ said Ryan angrily. ‘It took me ages to make that rope swing.’
‘Do you think you could get up there again?’ asked Daisy.
Ryan looked at her and