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hint of a smile playing on her face.
    These new aches were her aches. No one else put them there.
    Despite the early sun, the air was chill, freezing the sweat on her shoulders and spine. The sky hung low overhead, but the horizon promised a bright day and the stony fields were drier underfoot than she’d expected; the air cleaner and clearer than any she’d breathed for a long time. Maybe it was the break in the weather, or the surge of euphoria that often came with the departure of a migraine. Maybe it was simply the exercise, the sense of purpose and structure that running always gave. Whatever, her optimism wouldn’t be suppressed.
    Don’t get carried away, Helen told herself. Things that were easily given were just as easily taken away. It was only a sunrise, after all. One pretty sunrise meant nothing.
    For an hour, Helen ran. Slightly unsteady, at first, then gaining confidence, she kept the sun in her sights so she could turn her back on it to find her way home. It wasn’t an easy run, the fields far from smooth, but she’d done tougher. Strangely, the rockiness helped; as she ran, increasing her strides to keep pace with the landscape, her thoughts were reduced to nothing but the ache in her muscles, the pumping of her lungs, where to place her feet and how to navigate boulders and rocks without losing pace. You can do this, said the endorphins seeping into her bloodstream.
    You can do this.
    Her calves and thighs now burned in earnest. Her punishment for failing to warm up properly would be harsh, but there was no point stopping to stretch now. Sweat marbled the top that had claimed it would wick sweat away and her newly dyed hair was plastered to her forehead. Putting her hand up, Helen was relieved to see the sweat came away clear.
    It was only when the road was far to one side and she felt confident she was alone – no walkers, climbers or birdwatchers in this early morning world – that, for the first time in a very long time, longer than she could bear to consider, Helen realised she felt entirely safe. Ahead was a long low cliff jutting from the dale. Looking closer, Helen recognised the rock from the painting above the fireplace in the upstairs drawing room; the rock on which the boy in the bedroom portrait stood. The Scar, according to a little brass plaque fixed to the painting’s frame.
    Part from superstition, part for luck, she ran up the sloping grass. From this side, the cliff was deceptive, the dale rolling and surging benignly, like the back of a sleeping giant. Only the occasional cluster of boulders puncturing the grass as the Scar rose beneath her feet.
    Helen knew she must look like hell but she didn’t care, she felt better than she could remember. The endorphins were doing their work, flushing out the last of her migraine, reducing the nausea to a memory. Slowing to a halt, she dropped forward, resting palms on bare knees and watched sweat drip from her newly tawny fringe and spread a Rorschach blot on rocks at her feet.
    Several minutes passed as she hung there. Not looking, not thinking, just breathing. And listening.
    She’d expected total silence out here on the Dales, but she was wrong. In the near-distance a crow called and overhead the shadow of something wheeled far above. She didn’t know enough about birds to recognise it; but she knew hawks wheeled. Several fields away, black-faced sheep bleated. Behind her, she felt, rather than saw, a small shadow shift. Then it was gone. Another bird, probably, moving quickly overhead. Everything else was still and, gradually, her heart rate eased and her breathing slowed.
    When eventually she righted herself, the landscape took her breath away. A handful of paces in front of her the ground dropped away, plummeting perilously. In the distance was the crag that gave the village its name. Somewhere in the opposite direction loomed the skeleton of an ancient priory. At least, according to the old guidebook she’d found in a drawer at the