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call like the note of a hunter’s horn.
    Still facing him, the man in the mask reached to the dangling straps behind his neck and pulled his mask away.
    Nobody but Julian Hogg was there to see that the mask had been simply a copy of the dreadful face that was underneath. And the monstrosity of the real face was far more appalling because it was alive: now the glaring yellow eyes blinked, the twisted mouth moved its dark lips. For an instant Julian stared in horror at the terrifying malevolent sneer, and the stubs of horns dripping blood.
    Mrs Wallace’s old friend smiled at Julian. The smile was the worst thing of all.
    â€œSee you soon, Mr Hogg,” he said.
    Then he turned, and was gone.

The Gates
    Liz Williams
    I didn’t like our new home, but my mum said that it would grow on me. I wasn’t sure about that. I thought that it was too flat, the hills a distant blur of blue. The village lay low and soggy. The grass in between the apple trees was puddled with wet and not only after it rained. It was late November now and everything was brown and grey. The trees looked as though someone had taken a black pen and drawn them against the sky. They were alder and willow and ash, Mum told me, and in the spring a man would go around with a machine and give the willows a haircut,until they looked like the ugly heads of old bald men. This was because willow grows too fast, she said.
    â€œHow do you know?” I asked her.
    â€œBecause I lived near here when I was a little girl, like you, Hannah. A bit younger, maybe – I was only ten when we moved away. I lived with my grandmother, your great-grandmother. She had a cottage in a village called Oddmore, which is on the other side of Taunton.”
    â€œDoes she still live there?” I was curious. I hadn’t known my nan, let alone a great-grandmother.
    â€œNo, she died years ago.”
    â€œWhy did you live with her?”
    â€œBecause my mother couldn’t look after me and then she died, too.”
    â€œWhy couldn’t she look after you?”
    â€œShe was ill.”
    â€œWhat was the matter with her?”
    My mother sighed. “She had a problem with drinking.”
    â€œOh.” It was the first time we’d had this sort of conversation. I suppose it meant that I was old enough to understand, but I wasn’t sure I liked that. “Did you like it there?”
    â€œYes, after a bit. At first I didn’t. I thought the village was too small and nothing ever happened, especially after London, although we didn’t live in a very nice part of the city. But there was a lot going on. I suppose these days you’d say I was a street kid.”
    â€œIt’s not like Bristol, either. Here, I mean.”
    â€œNo, it’s not, but you’ll get used to it. It’s a different kind of life.”
    I suppose it had worked before, for my mum, so she thought it might work again. But I was not sure that I would come to like it. The village was not a pretty one, but built of mainly modern houses. Ours was older, a proper cottage, but it was also damp and there were slugs in the kitchen in the mornings. Mum said they crawled up the pipe. I had to go to school on the bus but it was nearly the end of term and everyone already had their own friends. And they were all white: only one other girl was like me. I got tired of explaining that my dad’s dad had been Jamaican, although actually they weren’t horrible about it, just didn’t seem to really get it.
    So at the weekends I moped about the house, and eventually, on the third Sunday, my mother told me to go out and get some fresh air.
    â€œYou’re always on that computer.”
    â€œI like the computer. I’ve got tons of friends on Facebook. And I’ve got to do my homework.”
    My mum looked amused. “You’re not usually so keen on your homework.”
    â€œBut Mum, this is for history. It’s about the ancient