PART 1

    Chapter 1

     Annie was a free spirit, a soul who lived with the wild. She played truant on the moor, singing to the birds and rabbits and chattering eagerly to the squirrels. She rode a horse, a fine old stallion with a dappled brown coat, whom she called Wonder. Annie rode freely through the moors, stopping every once in a while at the little roadside villages dotted here and there on the moor. At night she would sleep under the stars; if it rained she simply climbed up a tree and used the branches for shelter. Annie had never known her parents, but she did not mourn for them. Wonder was her only family, and the two of them were inseparable. 

    One fine summer evening, Annie sat at the crest of Primrose Hill, with Wonder happily munching on the grass and heather. The sun sank between the distant hills and stars twinkled into view. Annie sighed happily.

    ‘You know, Wonder,’ she said, ‘if my parents are still alive, perhaps they live somewhere on the moor. Or maybe they live

in that big old city, London.’ The horse nuzzled into the crook of her arm. Annie smiled and stroked its nose. ‘I wish I knew something about them,’ she went on. ‘It’s heavenly up here, but I do wonder what it would be like to live in a regular house and sleep in a regular room on a bed.’ Wonder whinnied in response. Annie stood up. 

    ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘We’d better find somewhere to sleep tonight.’ She swung herself effortlessly on to his back and the two of them rode out into the distance.

    *      *      *

‘All right!’ Nancy, housemother at Miller’s House, beamed at the assembled twenty children who sat sprawled in the seats in front of her. Her gaze drifted momentarily to a fourteen-year-old boy with close-cropped brown hair and dark blue eyes that stared coldly into the distance. He glanced up at her and she quickly averted her eyes. ‘We will be going camping on the moor for four or five days, so I hope you’re all well packed,’ she went on. ‘You will all be paired up in twos. That means we will have ten pairs of children.’

 Nancy looked down at the clipboard in her hands. ‘Mary Hart will be paired with Ellen Ash,’ she said. She kept rambling on names. All the children seemed satisfied with their partners. 

    ‘Richard Woods and Simon Preston,’ Nancy announced. They were the last names on the list. 

    ‘I thought I asked you not to call me that.’ The voice was cold and hard, full of resentment. The boy Nancy had been looking at earlier now stood up and walked up to her. 

    ‘Listen, Nancy,’ he said. ‘I told you many times that I don’t want to come camping with you. And I've told you to call me Rick, not Richard.’

    ‘Sorry.’ Nancy looked down, avoiding his intense gaze.

    ‘You’ve said sorry too many times, Nancy,’ Rick answered. ‘I said I'd come on the trip, but I didn’t say you could call me Richard.’ 

    ‘I told you I was sorry, Rick,’ said Nancy, her voice quiet. ‘Are you still coming with us?’

    ‘Even if I said no, you’d probably make me,’ Rick grumbled. ‘You’d threaten me with Matron. I've told you Nancy, I’m old

enough to make my own choices, and I don’t want to come with you.’

    Nancy sighed. ‘I didn’t want to do this,’ she said, ‘but perhaps I should call Matron.’

    Rick didn’t falter, which made Nancy wonder about his parents yet again. She’d always been concerned for him; it was one of the many reasons she wanted him to be in her care. 

Dr Losberne was a children’s psychiatrist, an inquisitive man in his late twenties. He was sitting upright in his chair behind his desk when Rick walked in. 

    ‘Hello, Rick!’ The psychiatrist smiled brightly, but Dick just regarded him with his cold blue eyes. Matron prodded him forward, and he went over to the chair just opposite Dr Losberne and sat down.

    ‘Have you thought about what we spoke about at our last session, Rick?’ asked Losberne. ‘Have you managed to confront it?’

    ‘No,’ Rick replied drily. He couldn’t erase the images from his

mind. His parents sitting in the front of the car, the glass shattering… He closed his eyes, forcing himself not to break down in tears. That had happened much too often during his sessions with Dr Losberne. 

    The psychiatrist smiled kindly at him. ‘Please, Rick,’ he said. ‘Let me help you. You were only four when it happened, after all. I understand that you’re scared and resentful. It happens with almost every orphaned child. The only difference is that you witnessed your parents’ death.’ 

    ‘You don’t understand.’ Rick’s voice was hollow. ‘Knowing that they died, and I'm still alive… And my sister. Nobody knows what happened to her. She could be dead too.’

    Losberne gently touched his arm. ‘Don’t give up hope. Your sister could still be alive. And your parents lived their life. Fate has a way of weaving lives, Rick. You can’t change fate.’

    ‘They didn’t die naturally!’ Rick yelled, no longer able to control his emotions. His rage, his grief, his misery – everything flooded out. ‘My parents were murdered,’ he said, tears stinging his eyes. ‘Somebody shot at them. The police didn’t

believe me; you probably won’t either. But I'm telling the truth.’

    The psychiatrist stared at him. ‘Have you been carrying this secret all that while?’ he asked. ‘You didn’t tell anyone except the police?’

    ‘I told Nancy once,’ Rick said, more under control now. ‘She didn’t believe me. It was after I told her that she thought I needed psychiatric help. But she’s wrong. I don’t need a doctor. I don’t need to go camping with other children. I need to be by myself. I want to think.’

    Matron laid her hand on his shoulder, but he jerked it off. He hated physical contact. 

    ‘Come on, Rick,’ she said gently. ‘I'll give you an aspirin and you can go to bed.’

    ‘I hate my life,’ Rick mumbled. He was lying flat on his back in his sleeping bag, inside a stifling hot tent that he was sharing with Simon Preston. 

    He sat up and reached for his water bottle. He’d already made up his mind: he was going to run away. He grabbed his backpack and stuffed it with whatever supplies he thought he would need. Then he pulled on some clothes and crawled out of the tent.

    Outside, it was much cooler. A stiff breeze blew across the moor, rustling the branches of the cedar trees. Rick wondered which direction he ought to go. He was about to step onto the winding, unreliable dirt track he’d just come across when he heard the singing. He stiffened. The singing was loud and melodious, comforting and sweet. He recognized the song as Heal the World, by Michael Jackson, and began humming the tune under his breath. 

    ‘Perhaps the singing will lead to a town or something,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Then maybe I can catch a bus.’

    Rick shouldered his pack and set off towards the source of the

singing. Eventually he came to a low, gently sloping hill. He scrambled up it and saw a girl of about twelve sitting there. His heartbeat stumbled. The girl had a pretty, youthful face, framed by long, chestnut-coloured hair. Her sparkling blue eyes were the same colour as the summer sky. A brown stallion stood next to her, nuzzling into the crook of her arm.

    For two whole minutes, Rick was at a loss for words. But then he found his tongue.

    ‘Annie,’ he said, his voice hoarse and cracking with emotion. ‘You’re alive.’

    PART 2

    Chapter 2

    ‘Who are you?’ Annie demanded. ‘What do you mean, “You’re alive”? Of course I'm alive! I'm as fit as a fiddle!’ 

    Rick didn’t say anything; his whole body was perfectly still. But then a smile of relief spread across his face and he threw his arms around her, tears streaming down his face. 

    Annie allowed him to hug her, but then the breath was squeezed out of her lungs and she gasped, ‘Can’t breathe!’

    ‘Sorry!’ Rick let go of her. ‘Annie, I thought I'd lost you. The police searched for months! Have you been living on the moor all these years?’

    ‘Yes,’ said Annie. ‘The moor’s a lovely place. But I have some questions. Who are you? And why did you think you’d lost me? And what were you saying about the police searching for me? I haven’t any time for policemen, thank you very much! Pompous old fellows with their smart uniforms and badges, and they think they’re so jolly important!’

    To her immense surprise, Rick doubled over in fits of laughter. ‘Oh my,’ he said, recovering himself. ‘You’re just the

same as I remember. The two of us were always arguing, and mother…’ His voice broke and he lowered his head. Annie slipped an arm around him.

    ‘Are you lost?’ she asked gently. ‘Is that it? Have you lost yourself on the moor?’

    Rick didn’t answer her for two long minutes. ‘Annie,’ he said at last, ‘don’t you remember me? I'm Rick, your brother. You – you disappeared when you were two, and the police spent months looking for you. Where have you been?’ 

    ‘I've been on the moor,’ she said quietly. ‘And – you’re right. You are my brother. I remember. But I came to the moor because of what Auntie Polly said. I don’t remember exactly. I don’t even remember what Auntie Polly looks like. She said you were all dead, and that I'd better listen to her since she was the only family I had left. So that’s what I did.’

    Rick was silent. ‘At least we’re together again,’ he said after a long pause. ‘That’s the important thing.’

    ‘Rick,’ Annie said slowly, ‘are Mummy and Daddy still alive? Have you come with them, or are you alone?’

    ‘They aren’t alive, Annie,’ Rick said bitterly. ‘I – I was in the car with them, sitting at the back, and suddenly the side window on Dad’s side exploded. The glass went flying everywhere, and the car swerved out of control. I passed out; I thought I was dying and it was jolly surprising when I opened my eyes and saw that I was in hospital. Mummy had been killed in the crash. We left you at home with Aunt Polly.’

    ‘Aunt Polly took me to the moor and looked after me for a bit,’ said Annie, her mind turning over different possibilities. ‘After a while, she let me go; she said I had to learn to survive alone.’

    Rick frowned, deep in thought. He remembered Aunt Polly as a stern woman – his mother’s younger sister. He knew she was highly interested in shooting game. And then the answer hit him, so hard and brutal that he felt as if he’d been slapped. 

    ‘Aunt Polly killed them,’ he said urgently. ‘She used to hunt deer and birds and all that. I remember she was in debt to someone. Mummy let her borrow money, but then she was in debt to Dad. She must’ve killed them so that she didn’t have to pay. And she took you. She thought I was dead. Maybe she

wanted to inherit the money.’

    ‘I know where she lives,’ Annie said. ‘We can ride there on Wonder. If we find evidence, maybe we can tell the police.’

    Rick nodded and stood up, pulling his long-lost sister to her feet as well. ‘Come on,’ he said, smiling. ‘Let’s go.’

Aunt Polly lived in a small, red-brick cottage on the very edge of the moor. The two of them crept inside. 

    ‘What are you doing here?’ demanded a voice behind them. The two whirled around to see a woman in black camouflage standing behind them, holding a gun.

    ‘Get out of my house,’ snarled the woman, ‘or else stay here – permanently.’

    Ignoring the threat, Rick and Annie turned and bolted up the stairs. They checked every room until Annie finally came across a thick, lather-bound book with the words “Polly Desmond’s Journal” written on the front. She stuffed it into her front jersey pocket and leapt out of the window without a second thought. Rick stared in horror, but then he noticed a