4.11: Stand off in the woods

When she hits the ground, winded and surprised but somehow - impossibly? - unhurt, Lottie’s first thought is ‘Stupid grown-ups!’. The Pod is just another bossy grown-up, bossing her around! Emlyn is a thug! 

Resentfully, she sets off back to the Potting Shed, navigating by the sound of the stream that she knows will lead her back. But now the Potting Shed seems much further away than the journey out with Tiffany-Anne had been. The woods seem darker. More a forest. 

Suddenly she is surrounded by angry stones with obvious snapping teeth! Her path, forward and back, is blocked. 

Something falls from above to land next to her. It’s Emlyn. 

He fixes the stones with a stare and, although it is not directed at her, she can almost hear an echo of his icy command to them. The stones fall silent and, for the moment, stay still, grimly angrily staring back at him. He beckons for her (how? he has no arms! but he seems to) to run on beyond them all and she does, leaving him in silent mental battle with the hostile stones.