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as the door opened a few inches and the enormous Hug Howells, her face red and angry, stood barring the way.
    â€˜Get that damn dog off my property!’ she shouted.
    â€˜But I…’
    â€˜You heard me. It’s nothing but a nuisance. Bad enough I have to put up with that sculptor bloke, not paying his rent, parking his motorbike in front of my garage.’
    I grabbed Tia’s lead and took a few steps back.
    I didn’t know Hug Howells well, but she’d always seemed like a nice person before. She made honey from her bees. ‘Hug’s Happy Honey’ was in all the local shops – bright yellow jars with a cartoon of a cross-eyed bee on the label. Linette sold them in the Crab’s Claw.
    She was still ranting about Tia. ‘Bringing that yappy little pest here, making a racket. Get off my property, will you!’
    â€˜She’s not a pest,’ I shouted at the closing door. I hauled Tia back down the path. She was still tugging, trying to get to Hug’s house.
    Jago was waiting at the gate. ‘What was all that about?’
    â€˜Seems Hug hates dogs.’ I didn’t say it sounded like she hated Tristan too.
    â€˜Hug? That’s her name?’
    â€˜She was called Caress when she was born. But Dad said she got so big and strong when she was a kid everyone said she was more like a Bear Hug than a Caress. Hug stuck.’
    â€˜Nasty piece of work.’ Jago frowned.
    I nodded but it didn’t feel right. Dad told me that, when Mum went, Hug left a jar of honey on our doorstep every week for months and months.
    â€˜Come on. Let’s drop Tia home for a while and go to the beach.’
    â€˜What about the Shiver Stone? You said we could go there. I’d rather do that. I’m not much of a swimmer.’
    â€˜We can do that later. It’s not going anywhere. Let’s get to the beach first while it’s still hot. I’ll teach you to dive off the cliff.’
    â€˜Cliff? Okay, I’ll get my hammer, it’s in my backpack in the caravan,’ he said.
    I looked at him like he’d gone mad. He explained on the way home.
    â€˜Geology?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Like rocks and stuff?’
    â€˜Yes. Carreg has got some unique folding.’
    I had no idea what ‘folding’ was and he drivelled on about something called anthracite and ammonoids. ‘The Shiver Stone is probably…’
    I was losing interest fast. ‘Don’t you get into trouble at school having your hair so long?’ I said to change the subject.
    â€˜What? No. I mean I don’t go to school. Mum home schools me.’
    â€˜Cool,’ I said.
    â€˜Not always.’
    We made our way through the usual press of holidaymakers. It took a while – everyone wanted to pat Tia and say how cute she was. We were close to the caravan site that Jago and his mum had booked into.
    But, to get there, we had to go through one of the Troll Holes. And I hated them.
    The Troll Holes are really three tunnels between Carreg and Wiseman’s Bridge. They were dug out of the cliff ages ago to move trucks of coal. There’s loads of old mine workings around here. The tunnels are dark and damp and when I was only four, a ten-year-old neighbour thought it would be funny to scare the hell out of me. I can remember even now what he said…
    â€˜They’re Troll Holes, Carys. Trolls are huge ugly things with claws and sharp teeth. They’re invisible. They hide in the Troll Holes until small kids come in and then they grab them and eat them.’
    Dad said I had nightmares for weeks. And now, stupid as it is, they still scare me. I always run through as fast as I can. That’s okay in the short one but in the longer ones you can’t see the light at the end and I’ve slipped over more than once. I hate them. I always go around the beach way if the tide is out, but I didn’t want Jago to know that.
    He wanted to go through the