Room for a Stranger by Ann Turnbull

drizzle. She took her mac from its peg and went outside.
    The street was black, no street lamps, not a chink of light showing from any of the blacked-out houses.
    Doreen never went out in the blackout on her own. None of her friends did. They were always home before dark; it was like a curfew. Trips to the cinema or to Aunty Elsie’s with Mum or Lennie were different. Then the darkness was exciting: full of chatter and the rustle and scent of chips wrapped in newspaper. Now she was conscious only of the
tap-tap
of her footsteps on the pavement.
    Farther on, in the lane that led between hedges to Old Works, the shadows deepened and she couldn’t see where she was putting her feet and there was nothing ahead but the dark and the patter of rain on leaves. She felt utterly alone.
    I won’t know when I’m there, she thought. But somehow she did; her feet took her the familiar way, in among the ruined buildings, past the entrance to the tunnel. Her eyes gradually made out the outlines of walls and tree-stumps. The works went into a hollow, and down there was the entrance to the Dungeon.
    The hollow was a cup of darkness.
    I’ll call, she thought.
    Her voice was thin in the empty space. “Rhoda! Are you there? Rhoda!”
    No reply.
    An owl hooted. Even in bed at night the sound of owls frightened Doreen.
    â€œRhoda!” Her voice rose, panicky, on the last syllable. “Rhoda, I’m scared! Please come out!”
    She began to tremble. Perhaps Rhoda couldn’t hear her because of the rain. Or didn’t want to. Perhaps she wasn’t there at all, and Doreen was alone in Old Works.
    The wavering cry came again.
    â€œIt’s just an owl,” she said angrily, aloud. The rain fell harder. Its roar surrounded her. Her hair was streaming wet and water was running down her neck, and she dared not go into the hollow.
    She remembered another way. An easier way in the dark. There was a well-beaten path through the woods onto the roof of the Dungeon; all the children used it. You could walk onto the roof, and where it was broken you could look down into the room below.
    She felt for the path. Brambles caught her legs, and once she tripped on a tree root and nearly fell. She stopped then, and shouted, but there was no answer. She became almost convinced that she was wrong, that Rhoda wasn’t there at all, but at Aunty Elsie’s, telling everything, and being given cocoa and a bed for the night…
    She reached the roof. The ground felt different, harder, underfoot, and led up in a slight curve. Now she had to be careful. She squatted and felt wet brickwork beneath her hand.
    She called again.
    Still no answer. But did she hear something – a rustling – or was it some animal? The hiss of rain blurred other sounds.
    Something moved below, she was sure.
    â€œRhoda! It’s Doreen!”
    She inched forward on hands and knees. There was a tree, a rowan, growing between the bricks near the drop. She reached out and found it, held on, and felt for the edge of the broken roof with her free hand.
    â€œRhoda!”
    That movement again, and then she saw it: the pale oval of a face.
    â€œGo away,” said Rhoda.
    A great wave of relief washed over Doreen.
    â€œI can’t,” she said. “You’ve got to come home. Mum will be so worried.” She found that her teeth were chattering. “Please, Rhoda. I’m sorry I said those things. They weren’t true.” She leaned forward, trying to see some response in the upturned face. “I never meant to—”
    And suddenly the bricks moved under her hand; she lurched, seized at the tree to save herself and swung out over the drop as the roof gave way and bricks and earth showered down. She heard screaming – her own and Rhoda’s mixed – and then the branch snapped and she fell, landing hard on the rubble. She hid her face from the rush of earth and stones. The battering on her back