Excerpt from One Puzzling Afternoon by Emily Critchley, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Memory is the diary we all carry about with us."

PROLOGUE

I stand on the empty platform under the heat of the midmorning sun. The station is on the edge of a small town, and the surrounding fields are full of golden wheat waiting to be harvested. The huge sky stretches wide and cloudless, a clear, hard blue above the patchwork of green and yellow fields. From the station bridge, a few cows can be seen grazing, flicking away flies with their tails. A hand-­printed sign advertises PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES. High above me, a starling spins his chatty song.

Very soon these familiar fields and lanes will be combed by police and volunteers. Bodies beating back the wheat, peering under the hedgerows, crawling across the land with their maps and torches, hoping to be the ones who can shed light on the local girl's disappearance, yet dreading what they may discover. Hundreds of statements will be taken, residents' questionnaires studied and analyzed, and of course the missing girl will be seen everywhere: riding a bus in Manchester, buying a packet of cigarettes in Norwich, working in a shoe shop in Hampshire. Local people will dream of her and wonder if their dreams have meaning. Committees will be formed, money raised, fingers pointed, hopes dashed again and again.

Of course it isn't me they'll be looking for. It's Lucy.

Right now, there is little breeze, and I can feel beads of perspiration forming on my forehead. My knee throbs under the blood-­soaked handkerchief. I adjust the brim of my straw hat and glance up at the station clock. The anxiety curls itself into a tight ball in my chest, almost causing me to forget my grazed hands, my bloody knee, and scraped shin. "I'll be back before you know it," she'd said. I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself. She'll be here. She has to be.

The station is empty. The stationmaster is probably further along the track in the signal box.

He is not only stationmaster but porter, clerk, ticket inspector, and signalman. The station is used far less frequently than it was when my father was a young man and only the wealthy could own a motorcar. These days, there is no need for station staff; only a handful of trains pass through in a day and, unbeknownst to me now, in twelve years' time the station will close completely. The station house will be converted into a private residence, the signal box left derelict, the track either lifted or forgotten, the long grass and tangled weeds making it difficult to see where it was once laid. But this is all far off in the future, a future I am unable to envisage, a future I don't know will be forever changed by this day.

I shift my weight from one foot to the other, willing Lucy to hurry. The platform shimmers in the heat. Using my hand as a visor, I squint into the sun, looking at the long, narrow road that leads to the station. I expect to see her there, pedaling furiously, her hair tied back with her scarf, her skirt flapping around her knees. But there is nothing, just the empty road.

Come on.

My tweed skirt makes my bare legs itch and my feet feel hot inside my brown lace-­ups, but I needed to bring them; they are the best things I own, and better to wear them than to carry them. My small brown suitcase is at my feet. I packed as much as I could, but I know it won't be enough. Never mind, we'll manage. As long as we're together. As long as we're far away from here.

The hands of the clock are edging toward five to eleven, and I can feel a sickness rising in my throat. She has to be here. She has to come back.

An awful thought dawns on me: what if she's changed her mind? Decided she wants to stay? But she was here, I remind myself. She was here and now she isn't, and it's all my fault.

She said it wouldn't take long. She promised she'd be back.

Excerpted from One Puzzling Afternoon by Emily Critchley. Copyright © 2023 by Emily Critchley. Excerpted by permission of Sourcebooks Landmark. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.