CHAPTER NINETEEN
With morning came snow and the certain knowledge that the three boys were lost to Lynnwood. Freya had known it would snow from the whiteness of the sky, but there was still no preparing for the first icy breath, bearing with it fledgling flakes. Standing in the kitchen doorway with Lizzie, she watched as Eaton and George dashed across the garden, two spirits unbridled by the breath of winter. And though there was no denying the flicker of delight that accompanied those first few flakes, she couldn’t ignore the sickening realisation that the snow changed everything. The Forest, the village, the abandoned Brockenhurst line, the Old Barn, Mr. Shepherd’s snowdrops and his cruel traps... Beneath the blanket of white they were all the same.
One by one, or sometimes in pairs, v
