The memory of midnight

the long version

One hot day in Elizabethan York, young Nell Appleby is trapped in a wooden chest, and a horror of the stifling dark - and of the man who trapped her - dogs her the rest of her life. Wed to the sadistic Ralph Maskewe, Nell must find joy where she can, until the return of her childhood sweetheart offers a chance of flight to the New World. Will Nell escape the dark at last? Four and a half centuries later, Tess and her small son Oscar move to York. But time in York has a way of shifting strangely, and memories of a past that is not her own begin to surface with disturbing effect.