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She charged down the alley way, jumping bin bag boulder piles that littered her path.

Around her, the buildings listed limply. Her feet clattered through puddles soaking

her canvas shoes and the crow, clinging to a nearby aerial, was so close he could

see her breath billowing like smoke in to the chilly air. It shifted its position and

cocked its head to one side. She is young for a human thought the crow-but you

never can tell.

She came to a stop and leant against one of the tombstone like properties. Her head

was tilted forward; one hand supported her against the wall. She looks twitchy,

mused the crow, like a cat. The crow shivered at the thought and took off to roost

closer to the top of the building. Just to be on the safe side.

Emma started at the sudden movement of the crow but then relaxed back. She sank

down onto the step, they co uldn¶t be far behind. She hauled herself wearily to her

feet. They were never far behind. If she kept going she¶d reach Coggeshall road

again in a few hundred meter s and she¶d be able to turn left onto the High Street

then jog on to St. Michaels Church. Sh e¶d lose them in the perpetual crowd and then

double back around th rough the Market Square and up Mount Street, cross

Coggeshall Road again and be jogging down Bradford Street towards the Nunnery

before they knew they¶d lost her.

She smiled grimly and beg an her long loping run. Someday they might catch her but

not today.
The crow nibbled thoughtfully on a worm and watched from the roof as the g irl

started jogging again, knap sack bouncing wildly. He was an aged crow but he still

remembered his hopping childhood, racketeering around St. Michaels Bell Tower in

a roving pack of other young birds. He¶d spent his entire life watching humans

scuttling about. He could judge how human s felt by the way they moved. He could

tell a depressed-screw-my-life-trudge from a drunken-higher-than-hell-lurch. He

thoughtfully regarded the girl. She was definitely an if -i-run-far-enough-the-bugger-

won¶t-catch-me. Interesting.

Emma kept going. The street lights were just beginning to glow baby pink, sluggishly

fading to autumn leaf orange, and above their lanky silhouettes the sky was dimming

from grey to a deep purple.

The regular-as-clockwork rush hour was starting and the cars were creeping,

bumper to bumper, in an extended ant line. A man in a shapeless b lack cap barged

past her as she jogged past the dilapidated Millets. She smelt the garlic and

turpentine on him and drew away from the contact.

She loped on, un der the little bus shelter, towards the fountain square that bordered

the church yard. That¶s when she spotted them. They were getting sneaky; their car

was parked up innocently on the opposite kerb.

She back tracked, skidding down a little side street th at ran parallel to the grave yard

of the church. Were there footsteps behind her? Had they seen w here she¶d gone?

She made it halfway down the street before the snouty car rumbled round the corner,

lighting her up like a rabbit in headlights. It bounced ov er the potholes and came to a

stop. The doors flicked open with a snick,like a safety catch clicking off. Two of them
got out. She could hear more footsteps tapping towards her from the direction of the

brightly lit main street.

³MOVE´ urged her brain to her unresponsive body. They were maybe ten feet away,

hands out tentatively, as if to calm a frightened animal«

³MOVE´

She darted away from the figures, going from stock still to bounding hard towards the

grave yard. She scrambled over the low stone wall and could hear the shouts behind

as she tumbled into the grave yard. She paid them no mind and stumbled on,

bouncing off grave stones bursting from the gums of the earth. She was tired out by

fear and running. The long g rass bent and bowed as her legs bowed under her. She

took cover beneath the old alder tree in one corner of the grave yard, the crow

perching on a crooked limb.

Emma hugged the earth. She kept her head down. Maybe they¶d miss her, just

blunder blindly past. But already lances of light glared from torches as figures slowly

advanced across the grave yard.

So this was it. This was where the chase and hunt ended. The hounds had run the

hart to ground and now they were closing in and hackles raised and lips stretc hed

back to form teeth filled grins.

It took her back to the beginning. Slipping away, on a night when Jack Frost had

come and painted every car in the street with a masterpiece. She¶d padded down the

stair case, feeling the worn grooves in the varnished bannister and stepping gingerly

over the piled newspapers at the bottom. She¶d lifted the latch and pause d, staring at

the round face of her father. She considered his face for a few more seconds then
pocketed the photograph from its place where it rested on the door side rack,

neighbour to the colourful umbrella her sister loved. She¶d lifted the latch again and

disappeared down the avenue«

The chase and days had become a blur then , like those summer days after you

leave High School those warm days which fade into a dusky twilight meanderin g

sluggishly by like the small river. The blur for Emma had been a bounding rush of

recurring images seven times over: sleeping in bus shelters, dodging between

heated shops like all the other people, bundled in overcoats and gloves if they had

any sense. Emma had kept it up for nearly a week now. She, once or twice, tried to

work out what exactly she had planned . She imagined she¶d catch a boat, be an

exciting stowaway and disappear to wherever the sea might bear her: Venice,

Buenos Aires, Sweden. But now it led to the dingy flint -walled church only a mile

from her home. She looked up at the old crow in the branches of the alder and

thought, as Icarus must have thought, that birds were a happy race able to visit any

silver-ringed isle they choose. Emma sighed. It was time for the chase to end.

A new one would soon begin«

The crow flapped agitatedly as it watched the girl rise slowly from a prone position to

a crouch and from a crouch into a full stand. A delighted cry went up and the men in

high-vis jackets rushed forward in a flock. `he girl looked comfortable now thought

the crow, like a cat in front of a fire . The crow clicked its beak at the thought.

Disgusting slinky sneaky creatures-cats though the crow. But there was something in

them that made you know you could never train a cat.

Emma¶s fingers poked out of her fingerless gloves, dr awing warmth from the cup of

cocoa the police man had offered her. He had been friendly and young and now he
was talking over his little black radio. It felt nice to be warm again; she stretched her

arms in front of her, flexing her back. A face swam into view out in the gloomy street,

a round face that looked on at her as though it could believe its eye s.