"Not you," said Mum, and shut the door behind her. Nell Craske put her forehead against the cold glass and watched her go. The snow had come down all afternoon and stopped again, and Chandler's Pitch had gone to glass. At the bottom of the hill sat the bus, lit up inside like a fish tank, with the snow filling in round its wheels. Nobody on it was going anywhere. Above the house the road climbed on to the Winter Gate, and nobody was getting over that tonight either. Nell knew every crack of that hill in the dark. She wanted to be the one who was sent.