
Once it had been the great forest of Lythe & here in the beginning lived the Fairfaxes grandly at Fairfax Manor But over the centuries the forest had been destroyed replaced by Streets of Trees The Fairfaxes have dwindled too; now they live in ' Arden' at the end of Hawthorne Close & are hardly a family at all But Isobel Fairfax who drops into pockets of time & out again knows about the past She is sixteen & waiting for the return of her mother
- the thin dangerous Eliza with her scent of nicotine Arpege & sex whose disappearance is part of the mystery that still remains at the heart of the forest