The Candle Man, by Catherine Fisher

This is an early novel by Catherine Fisher, who is perhaps best known for Incarceron, the first of a series. The Candle Man is a stand-alone young adult novel from thirteen years earlier. It is a curious tale about the conflict between a kind of water witch, Hafren, who wants to initiate a record flooding of some towns along the Severn Estuary (called in Welsh the Aber Hafred--Hafren being the name of a legendary figure drowned in the Severn, giving the river its name), and she is opposed by Meurig, the Candle Man of the title, who is aided by a rather dull young boy Conor and a more sensible young girl, Sara. Meurig is called the Candle Man because in an earlier encounter with Hafren, the witch paired Meurig's life with the diminishing length of a candle, which becomes controlled by Hafren, and Meurig and the children go to a surreal island in an attempt to get it back. The tale is rather short, and not especially ambitious, but some of its ideas and imagery are unusual, which gives it some attraction.