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strength.
    ‘Flamin’ goats,’ he said. ‘They’re what has all the walls knocked on me.’
    Tess said nothing, but heaved up another stone. Her one attempt at repairing the wall had resulted in a badly bruised toe, and she now left the building to Brian, who was surprisingly skilled at it. He took the stone from her and she stretched to ease her aching back.
    ‘There they are, look,’ Uncle Maurice went on. ‘Up on the crag, see?’
    Tess followed the direction of his pointing finger. Sure enough, she could just make out the multicoloured forms of a herd of wild goats. The higher parts of the crag weren’t quite as steep as the lower ones, but nonetheless the goats seemed to be standing at impossible angles as they browsed on the wild foliage.
    Tess’s heart went out to them and she longed to be there, climbing with them, breathing the rarefied air up there above it all. She cast her mind back to the morning’s events and decided that she wasn’t going to let fear cramp her style. They were among thousands of acres of farmland after all, and there were ways of getting up into the mountains without going anywhere near those creepy woods. A goat was one of her favourite creatures, and she wasn’t going to miss out on the chance to be one again, perhaps for the last time.
    But the opportunity took a while to arrive. After lunch they went to visit Uncle Maurice’s parents, and then it was dinner time, and then there was evening mass. By the time Tess found herself alone again, night had fallen, and she was lying in bed, waiting once again for the household to sleep.
    When, finally, all was quiet, she got up and, taking care not to wake Orla, crept over to the window. The moon was high and white. Beneath it the mountains gleamed like mercury, their strange, fluid forms giving the impression of melting. The beauty of the night took her breath away.
    As she watched, mesmerised, she saw, out of the corner of her eye, a glimmer of bluish light somewhere around the base of the crag. She looked at the place where it had been, and immediately it flashed out in another place, just at the edge of her vision. A shiver ran down her spine. She blinked and rubbed her eyes to clear them, but again the spark-like lights flashed, first from one side, then from another. Like shooting stars, the flashes were gone before she could get a proper look at them, and they never seemed to appear where she happened to be looking at the time, but always at the edge of her vision.
    She turned away from the window. She had intended to take on the form of an owl or some other nocturnal creature and make a night-time trip around the area, but now she wasn’t so sure. There had to be an explanation for what she had just seen; a trick of her eyes, perhaps, or of the moonlight. But her rational mind was already way out of its depth and could make no sense of it at all. There was something in those woods that Tess couldn’t begin to understand, and she had no intention of going out there in the dark, no matter what forms she had to choose from.
    Much as she hated to admit it, Tess was afraid.

CHAPTER FIVE
    B UT IN THE MORNING, things, as they so often do, seemed quite different. Tess woke early, and the delight of the birds in the trees around the house made the fears of the night before seem like a childish dream. The morning was fresh and bright, and it was impossible for Tess to go back to sleep. Hardly daring to breathe, she slithered out of bed and began to gather her clothes. But it was already too late.
    ‘Where are you going?’ asked Orla.
    Tess tried to hide her irritation. ‘Do you never sleep?’
    ‘Not much,’ said Orla, truthfully. She coughed and sat up on the edge of her bed. Her legs, emerging from beneath her nightdress, were like pale twigs. Tess turned away. It must be awful to be so ill.
    Orla began to pull on her jeans. ‘Can I come with you?’ she asked.
    ‘Sorry,’ said Tess. ‘You know your mother doesn’t allow