The vet’s surgery is the one with the blue door. But on the blue door there is a laminated notice: SURGERY HOURS, ST PIRANS: TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS ONLY. 10 A.M. – 5 P.M.
It is Monday. No surgery. Sadie looks up at me in mournful exhaustion. All at once I know in every fibre of my body that Mum and Conor are wrong. Sadie’s condition is serious. There isn’t time to wait for tomorrow’s surgery. Sadie needs help now, and there’s only one person who might be able to give it. Granny Carne. Everyone round Senara goes to Granny Carne when they have a trouble they can’t solve. I think of Granny Carne’s amber, piercing eyes, and the power in her. She’ll know what’s wrong with Sadie. She’ll help her, if anyone can.
At the same moment I hear the growl of a bus engine, changing gear at the bottom of the hill. I look back and there is a shabby blue bus with SENARA CHURCHTOWN on the destination board. Home. I stick out my hand.
The bus lumbers past without stopping. The driver turns to me and yells something I can’t hear, then as he gets towards the top of the hill I see he’s indicating left, pulling in at the bus stop to wait for me.
“Can’t stop on the hill, see,” he explains as I climb up the steps, pushing Sadie ahead of me. “Lucky for you I’m ahead of myself this morning.”
“Thanks for waiting.”
“I could see that poor old dog couldn’t hardly get up Geevor.”
I find my fare, and go to the back of the bus. He thought Sadie was old. That must be because she looks so weak.
I flop down on the back seat, with Sadie at my feet. The driver pulls out on to the road again, and picks up speed. On we go past the grey stone houses, past the rugby ground and the caravan site, past the farm at the edge of town and to the crossroads where the school bus turns left. But this bus turns right, on to the open road that leads across the moors to Senara. A streak of pale, wintry sun lights up the hills. The landscape opens wide and beautiful around us. I take a deep breath of freedom. No crowds, no busy streets. Just a narrow grey road rising over the wild country towards home.
When the old blue bus drives off into the distance, leaving me at the roadside with Sadie, the reality of what I’ve done hits me. This is the stop before Senara Churchtown, and the nearest stop to Granny Carne’s cottage. There are no houses here, only the road and the hills covered in bracken, furze and heather. There’s a wide black scar across the hills, from a gorse fire.
No one is about. The road is grey and empty. But that’s what I wanted, isn’t it? I didn’t want to see anyone I knew. If I walk along the road a little way, there’s a footpath that leads up to Granny Carne’s cottage.
“Come on, Sadie,” I say encouragingly. “It’s not far now.” But this time Sadie doesn’t respond to my voice. She slumps on the rough grass between the road and the ditch, drops her head on to her paws and closes her eyes.
“Sadie!”
Very slowly, with what looks like a great effort, Sadie opens her eyes. They stare at me dully, without recognition. After a few blank moments, her lids close again.
Terror runs through me like an electric shock. I think she’s dead. I throw myself down on the grass beside her and press my ear to her side. I can’t hear anything. She’s gone. It is so terrible that I can’t move or speak. And then, very slowly, her ribs move under her skin. There’s a rusty, tearing sound in her throat, as if she’s trying to breathe through barbed wire. But she’s breathing. She’s alive.
It’s all my fault. I should never have forced her up Geevor Hill. Now she can’t even walk. She can hardly breathe. What am I going to do? I look wildly up and down the road. No one’s in sight. A sparrow hops out of a furze bush, cocks its head at me, then hops away again. “Sadie!” I try to lift her into my lap. She’s heavy, limp and hard to move. But she’s warm. She’s alive. “Hold on, Sadie. I’ll get help for you. I promise. Please, please don’t die.”
But how can I get help? If only I had a mobile. But even if I had, it would be no good here. Everyone in Senara complains that they can’t get a signal. Phone box. There’s a phone box down by the church. How long would it take me to run there? Ten minutes maybe, and then I’d have to make the call, and then another ten minutes back. That’s too long.
If I leave her now, she’ll think I’ve abandoned her again, and she’ll give up.
“Oh, Sadie, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…” I hug her tight, trying to pour life into her. She can’t die like this – for nothing. She wasn’t even ill yesterday. She was so full of life.
I put my hand gently on her head, and stroke her as reassuringly as I can. “Hold on. You’re going to be all right.” But for the first time ever, Sadie twists her head away from my hand. Feebly, she struggles to heave herself off my lap.
“Get up, Sapphire. Stand back from her. Give her air,” says a voice behind me.
“Granny Carne!” My words spill over each other in a rush of relief. Granny Carne will know what to do, better even than a vet. “Help me, please help me, I was coming to find you. Sadie’s so ill, I think she’s dying—”
“Don’t say that word in her hearing. You’ll frighten the spirit out of her. Stand back and let me see her.”
Reluctantly, I unwind my arms and settle Sadie gently back on the cold grass. Granny Carne stands very still, looking down at Sadie. She looks more like a tall tree than ever, with Sadie in her shelter. Her fierce eyes gleam. I can’t bear to see Sadie lying like that, so sick and so alone. I start to move—
“No, Sapphire, stand right back. You can’t help her.”
“I can’t stand here and let her die!”
“No one’s letting anyone die, my girl. But what Sadie needs now is Earth power. See the way she lies there, so close to the earth? You ever seen a mother put her baby against her skin when it’s sick, my girl?”
“No.”
“These days everyone learns so much at school that they end up knowing nothing. But Sadie knows.”
“I was going to bring her up to your cottage, but it was too far. She couldn’t walk any more.”
“Give her time. She’ll come round.”
For a long while it looks as if Granny Carne isn’t doing anything. She stands there, not moving, not taking her eyes off Sadie, watching every breath Sadie takes. Suddenly there’s a small, chirruping whistle. One of the sparrows in the furze, maybe. But the whistle comes again, more strongly and sweetly, and I know it’s not a sparrow. It’s Granny Carne. The sound is coming from her lips, and she’s whistling to Sadie. The whistling grows louder, louder. A shiver passes over Sadie’s supine body. And another. Big shivers that shake her whole body, as if she’s suddenly realised that she is freezing to death. Granny Carne’s whistling grows until my ears ring with it. Sadie shivers once more, from her nose to the tip of her tail. Her body looks different. She’s not slumped so much. One of her ears comes forward, as if she’s listening. Her tail thumps feebly against the grass. Slowly, with great difficulty, she opens her eyes again, and this time her eyes meet Granny Carne’s. They shine with recognition for a second before they close.
“Sadie!”
“She’ll do now,” says Granny Carne. “Give her time.”
“Is she better?”
“Not by a long way,” says Granny Carne gravely. “Her spirit went a long way from us, on a cold journey.”
“Where did she go?”
“Ingo put her in fear. The spirit in her shrank away from it. It was like putting water on a fire. This