No Going Back Read Online Free PDF Page A

farm in the 1930s there had always been a swing on that tree.
    â€œLaura!”
    Mum bolted the back door and gestured to the stairs.
    I sighed, unable to put the moment off any longer.
    â€œI’m exhausted,” Mum said, stopping on the landing to give me a kiss. “Sleep tight.”
    â€œYou too,” I replied with a little wave as she stepped into her bedroom, out of sight. Suddenly, I felt completely alone, as if everything was absolutely new and strange, which was ridiculous.
    Normally, the fact that Gran’s bed had moved downstairs to the snug and Mum being at the other end of the corridor wouldn’t have bothered me at all, but on that night my breath seemed to snag in my chest and all my senses were on red alert. In mybedroom Mum had set out a few of my bits and pieces to make it feel more like home. It didn’t work. They just looked forlorn and displaced and made me feel worse.
    It was nearly midnight when I turned out the light and so, so dark. A little owl screeched right outside the window and the stairs creaked as if someone were treading on them. It’s just the timbers contracting, I said to myself, just the house settling down for the night. All the same… I couldn’t help wondering. Was there someone out there? Had some fugitive hidden in one of the barns and slipped into the house unnoticed? I wanted to get up, to open my door and switch on the landing light for comfort but I daren’t. Instead I shuffled down the bed, pulled the covers up high and eventually I think I slept – but not for long and not very deeply.
    I awoke with a horrible start. My heart felt as if it wanted to leap out of my chest. My mouth was dry and scratchy. The darkness pressed down on me. I longed for the comfort of street lights filtering through the gap in the curtains or even a faintlaser of moonlight. It was quiet, deathly quiet. I was leaning over, trying to find the switch on my bedside lamp, when I heard the noise: the tiniest crackle of metal on metal. I froze. Looked around the room. My eyes were adjusting to the gloom and in the bluish haze I saw my bedroom door opening, very slowly. I tried to reason with myself, to hear sane words rising above the sound of blood pumping through my veins. It was no good. However hard I tried to convince my brain that the door had opened on its own, that the minuscule air current filtering through my slightly open window had tugged at it, it didn’t work. Every cell in my body was telling me something different. There was someone there. Someone standing just out of view. Waiting.
    â€œMum? Is that you?”
    I could hardly speak. Silence.
    â€œGran?”
    Stupid to say that. She’d never have made it up the stairs and certainly not without clunking her stick on the steps. The door opened a little more, its hinges making more of that grating sound which I hadn’t been able to identify at first.
    It was then that I saw him, the shape of a man, standing just inside my room.
    I’d sometimes wondered what it would be like to be really terrified, how I’d react. Would I scream and run about, or would I be stuck to the spot? Now I knew. I couldn’t move, could barely breathe. It’s a cliché, but time really did seem to stop. The man stood completely still. He was tall with broad shoulders but it was too dark to see what he was wearing or make out from his face whether he was someone I knew. It was like a stand-off. Neither of us moved. I was the first to break.
    â€œW-what do you want?”
    My voice was little more than a whisper. I could hardly hear it myself. He didn’t reply. Shakily, I reached for the light switch again. This time I found it. I swear that I never took my eyes off the man, didn’t even blink when light flooded the room. But in an instant he had gone.

L IBERTY
    I spent half the night awake, braced in case the man reappeared. Only when dawn broke did I pluck up the courage to get out of