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them into the house. As my eyes grew accustomed to the shadows, I settled into my earthy den, looking around me at little shelves I had built of stones. Yes, there were my snail shells, my many-coloured pebbles, my acorn caps, some bright jay feathers, a cuff-link and a broken locket and other such treasures I had found in magpies’ nests.
    With a sigh of relief I curled my knees up to my chin in a most unladylike fashion, wrapped my arms around my shins, and gazed at the eddying water just beyond my feet. Trout fingerlings swam in the pool. Watching them dart and school, dart and school, usually I could Mesmerise myself into a sort of daze.
    But not today. All I could think was what could have become of Mum, how I would have to go home eventually and she would not be awaiting me, but my brothers would, and when I entered with a great deal of dirt all over my frock, they would say—
    A pox on my brothers.
    Putting my knees down where they belonged, I opened my new drawing kit to take pencil in hand, and a few sheets of paper. On one of these I drew a hasty, not particularly nice picture of Mycroft in his spats and his monocle and his heavy pocket-watch chain looped across his protruding waistcoat.
    Then I drew a similarly quick picture of Sherlock, all lanky legs and nose and chin.
    Then I wanted to draw Mum, for I was angry at her, too. I wanted to sketch her as she might have looked the day she went away, in her hat like an upside-down flowerpot, Turkey-back jacket, and a bustle, so ridiculous . . .
    And she hadn’t taken her art kit with her.
    And she hadn’t expected to be back for my birthday celebration.
    She had been up to something. Much as it hurt, I admitted it now.
    Confound her, the whole time I’d been searching for her in a panic, she had been doing very well on her own, enjoying some adventure without me.
    One would think I might feel glad to conclude that she was alive.
    Quite to the contrary. I felt wretched.
    She had abandoned me.
    Why hadn’t she just cast me off in the first place? Put me in a basket and left me on a doorstep when I was born?
    Why had she left me now?
    Where might she have gone?
    Instead of sketching, I sat thinking. Laying aside my drawings, I wrote a list of questions:
    Why did Mum not take me with her?
    If she had any distance to travel, why did she not use the bicycle?
    Why did she dress so oddly?
    Why did she not leave by the gate?
    If she struck out across country, on foot, where was she going?
    Supposing she found transportation, again, where was she going?
    What did she do with all the money?
    If she were running away, why did she carry no baggage?
    Why would she run away on my birthday?
    Why did she leave me no word of explanation or farewell?
    Putting down my pencil, I stared at the eddying stream, the fingerlings flowing past like dark tears.
    Something rustled in the underbrush that flanked the willow. As I turned to look, a familiar furry head poked into my hollow.
    “Oh, Reginald,” I complained, “let me alone.” But I leaned towards the old collie. He thrust his broad, blunt snout at my face, fanning his tail as I put my arms around his shaggy neck.
    “Thank you, Reginald,” said a cultured voice. My brother Sherlock stood over me.
    Gasping, I pushed Reginald away and reached for the papers I had left lying on the ground. But not quickly enough. Sherlock picked them up first.
    He gawked at my drawings of Mycroft and himself, then threw his head back and laughed almost silently yet quite heartily, rocking back and forth until he had to sit down on a shelf of rock beside the willow tree, gasping for breath.
    I felt on fire with mortification, but he was smiling. “Well done, Enola,” he chuckled when he could speak. “You have quite the knack for caricature.” He gave the sketches back to me. “It would perhaps be best if Mycroft were not to see those.”
    Keeping my red face down, I slipped the papers into the bottom of the drawing kit.
    My brother said,