The Worlds We Leave Behind

What if we could cancel those who have hurt us. Cancel them totally, so that they no longer existed, and the world would knit itself back together again, as if they had never been born? Does it sound tempting? It does to Hex. Hex knows that he sometimes does things that are stupid and hurtful, and he doesn’t quite know why. Then the stone he throws means little Sascha is off the rope swing and in the stream, with a broken arm. Alone with shame and confusion, he has nowhere to turn. He is found by Sascha’s vengeful elder sister, Maria. Fleeing a beating, he reaches a clearing and a cottage in the woods that he has never seen before. There is a dog and an old woman, and the old woman makes him this fateful offer to get his own back on Maria. He is considering it, when he discovers the old woman has made an identical offer to Maria. A.F. Harrold cleverly interweaves elements of familiar folk tale with a week in the lives of three children, each of whom is presented with the same dilemma. Hex, Maria, Tommo and the adults in their lives are people we might know, with familiar preoccupations, failings, and frustrations. The old woman, Missus, and the dog, Leafy, are the stuff of nightmares, ably characterised by Levi Pinfold’s sinister illustrations. Harrold’s solutions to the alternative worlds that might be produced by the children’s absences are thought provoking, and the explanation he provides for the witch’s intervention in the children’s lives owes as much to a vintage American tv series as to the brothers Grimm. It’s a handsomely produced tale about the darkness that can come to any of us on any day, the decisions that we take or avoid, and the possibilities, for good or ill, that stem from those choices. A perceptive and disturbing book.