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She dropped the leaf into the bin beside her door and then sat down at the desk to email her article over to her boss.

The reply came through almost straight away. Her boss told her that the reception to her previous article had been really good and encouraged her to keep them coming. He also hoped that she was having a good time in Briar Speckles.

She started to type that she wasn’t really sure whether she was having a good time or not, but decided that, on balance, it had at least been an interesting trip.

And then, of course, there was Edward.

She wanted an excuse to go up to the Carnival of Horrors again. But without a specific reason to attempt to bump into him, it might seem a little obvious that she found him attractive, even though she kept trying to convince herself that she didn’t like him at all.

He looked nothing like her previous boyfriends, who had all been blond, slightly built, and blue-eyed, although a little voice whispered that perhaps that was why they were all ex-boyfriends rather than current ones. Even so, it probably wasn’t a good idea to go looking for reasons to bump into Edward because it might end up distracting her from the task in hand. Even though her boss sounded pleased, there was still the threat of job cuts hanging over her head.

Thinking about the angle she could take with her next article, and feeling a little better now that both the coffee and the ibuprofen had kicked in, she decided to take a walk up to the mysterious Hanging Tree.

She probably only had a couple of hours of daylight left, so she needed to get a move on.

In the lobby of the Howling Gail Inn, she found a local tourist map with several trails marked on it and picked out a route through the village that would get her there the quickest.

Wandering through some quaint little back streets, she paused to read plaques bolted to the walls of several houses, noting their dates of construction, and a little about their history. One had once been a blacksmith; another an apothecary.

Then, just on the edge of the village, she came to a wide plot of land with a small pond at the rear, perhaps fifty feet across. In the middle of it, accessed by a wooden boardwalk, was what appeared to be a half-sunken Viking ship.

She stopped to take a picture, only to realise as she zoomed in that it was actually a rather uniquely designed home. Not a sinking ship at all, but a house built to resemble one.

Like many of the buildings in the village, it was constructed from stone, but it had a large wooden frame at the front and a carved figurehead of a lion facing up towards the sky.

She walked along the path to the front door, wondering who might live in such a unique dwelling, and noticed a name on the postbox:

Lars Blackship

Thinking that, since she was here, it would be a good opportunity to thank Lars for rescuing her after her fall, she knocked on the door.

There was no answer.

Nor was his van in the driveway on the other side of the pond, so she guessed he must have gone out.

Aware that she was running out of daylight, she hurried on, eventually finding the start of the trail leading up to the Hanging Tree.

With both the Hanging Tree and the aqueduct signposted, the marker gave a distance of one and a quarter miles, which, while not all that far on flat ground, might prove more challenging through steep woodland, particularly now that the light was fading.

Determined not to be a quitter and give up so easily, Kelly spurred herself on and started marching up the trail as quickly as she could.

However, after about twenty minutes, the pace was starting to wear on her, and she felt a little dizzy. She decided to take a breather, and sat down on a bench beside a fork in the path, where she drank some water from a flask she had brought with her while savouring the view.

Estimating that she had to be close to the hilltop, based on the fact that she was now above the aqueduct—which appeared through the trees below her and stretched across the valley—she got up and carried on.

However, after another ten minutes or so, the trail began to dip, taking her deeper into the woods instead of up towards the hilltop, and she began to wonder whether she had taken the wrong path.

At the fork, it had seemed obvious which route headed uphill, but perhaps the path had meandered in a way that had confused her.

She paused, turned around, and headed back.

But after only a couple of minutes, she came to another fork that she couldn’t remember seeing on the way up. There were no signposts. Which was the way back?

Determined not to be tricked again, she took the path angling downhill, only for it to take a turn a little further on and start upwards again. Aware she was hopelessly lost, she was about to start heading downhill at all costs, even if it meant going off the path and wading through the undergrowth, when the trees began to thin out.

Up ahead, the sky glimmered a deep orange-red between the shadowy boughs. Certain that this was the hilltop she had been searching for, she pressed on, even though the light was fading fast.

She was only a few steps from the summit, however, when she heard voices.