Heather and Snow by George MacDonald — Read

Without a word, but with disappointment in her heart that Steenie had / not answered them, Kirsty obeyed. But she went round through the / rickyard that she might have a moment's thought with herself. Not a / hand was laid upon her out of the darkness, no faintest sound came to / her ears through the silently falling snow. But as she took her way / between two ricks, where was just room for her to pass, she felt -- felt, / however, without the slightest sense of _material_ opposition, that she / could not go through. Endeavouring afterward to describe what rather / she was aware of than felt, she said the nearest she could come to it, / but it was not right, was to say that she seemed to encounter the ghost / of solidity. Certainly nothing seemed to touch her. She made no attempt / to overcome the resistance, and the moment she turned, knew herself / free to move in any other direction. But as the house was still her / goal, she tried another space between two of the ricks. There again she / found she could not pass. Making a third essay in yet another interval, / she was once more stopped in like fashion. With that came the / conviction that she was wanted elsewhere, and with it the thought of / the Horn. She turned her face from the house and made straight for the / hill, only that she took, as she had generally done with Steenie, the / easier and rather longer way.

The notion of the presence of Steenie, which had been with her all the / time, naturally suggested his house as the spot where she was wanted, / and thither she sped. But the moment she reached, almost before she / entered it, she felt as if it were utterly empty -- as if it had not in / it even air enough to give her breath.