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to have forgotten where they were.
    The preface pointed out that woods had been regarded as secret places ever since stories were recorded. They were the locations of many fairy tales, though the chapter on Germany opened with a Bavarian tradition that if you walked through certain forests at night with a baby on your back, by the time you emerged from the woods the child would have been replaced by something whose ancient voice would croak in your ear. As for America, here was a Burkittsville legend of a misshapen cottage said to have been visible from a woodland road-a cottage that shrank as travellers approached it, then grew as they tried to flee.

    Heather looked up Britain and was met by a Derbyshire tale about a woodwose, a satyr that emerged from a wood on Midsummer Eve in the guise of some local youth, whose betrothed it then seduced. In other versions it appeared as a brother who bedded his sister or a father who did so to his daughter. Heather had begun to wonder why she was continuing to read-perhaps in an attempt to demonstrate that not all Sylvia's interests were so dark- when someone came into the room.

    She was a sum young woman in denim dungarees and a black polo neck, with a large dilapidated canvas bag dangling from one shoulder. Perhaps she wasn't quite so young, to judge by the traces of grey that were apparent in her carelessly cropped reddish hair as she turned to close the door. "We aren't really open until nine," Heather said, but wasn't about to make an issue of it. She was leafing through The Secret Woods when she heard footsteps approach the counter.

    "May I help?" she said, not quite looking up.
    "Hey."

    The voice was American. If the word was an answer, Heather didn't understand it.

    The Secret Woods had just turned up a spread of fairy tales. She splayed one hand on the pages and glanced vainly about for a bookmark. "I'll be with you in just a few moments,"
    she said.

    "You've always been with me, Heather."

    Heather raised her slow astonished head to see large dark eyes opening wide to her, thin pink lips growing pale with the vigour of their smile, a small snub nose widening its nostrils as if scenting her. She stood up so fast her chair struck Randall's desk with a clatter whose echoes sounded like the fall of a branch through a tangle of boughs. "Sylvia," she cried.

    5

    The Return

    WHEN Heather raised the flap in the massive counter it seemed to have grown almost weightless. She might have imagined that the substance of the oak had been transformed if she hadn't realised her sister was lifting it too. As they embraced, it fell with a thud like the stroke of an axe, cueing a team of smaller blades among the shelves. Heather hugged her sister with a fierceness meant to counteract her not having recognised Sylvia at once-because of the accent, she told herself-only to feel the waist of Sylvia's dungarees collapse inwards. She wasn't much less thin than sticks. All Heather's years of big sisterhood surged over her, and she clutched Sylvia as if she might never again let her stray. At last she controlled herself enough to take Sylvia by the shoulders and gaze into her eyes, which appeared to be brimming with memories too. "What have you been doing to yourself?" Heather demanded.

    Sylvia tilted her smiling head. "Do you mean with?"

    "I mean to. What have you been eating, or haven't you?"

    "There wasn't much choice for veggies in Mexico."

    "You're still a herbivore, then."

    "Still eating like a wild thing, right."

    "I wish you were. We'll have to see you do."

    "You're still my old sister sure enough." Sylvia stepped back, breaking her sister's hold, as echoes and Randall came into the library. "Listen, am I keeping you from work?"

    "If you do I'll take the day off. I'll take however long we need to catch up.

    Randall, this is my baby sister Sylvia."

    "They must be delivering them fully grown these days," he remarked, then planted the back of his hand on his lips like a reproving