My bedroom walls pull apart brick by brick, and in their place sprouts an ancient fairy palace; my bed folds up into a giant nest; and, instead of street lamps and terraced houses, my windows show me a dense forest as tall as the eye can see. And, all at once, I feel calm.

The world of Fairy Hunters unfolds around me. I’ve been playing it since I was ten, and I’m getting pretty good at it now. It’s an online game where you’re put into teams to battle it out – fairies against wizards. I always choose Team Fairy. The aim of the game is to protect our nest of eggs from the wizards, who try to steal them to make potions.

There are four kinds of fairy on each team – earth, fire, water and wind. Earth fairies are the protectors; they go in first as they have the best defensive spells to protect their team. Then come the fire fairies – the close-range spellcasters. They need to cast quickly and attack the wizards before they have the chance to defend themselves. Next are the water fairies, the long-range spellcasters. Their job is to cast spells that take more time to conjure but are more powerful. They usually hang back. Then there are the wind fairies. I’m one of them. Our job is to help the rest of the team. Most people don’t like playing as wind fairies, because they think we’re useless.

We’re not. A lot of the time we’re the difference between winning and losing the game.

As I walk through the map and see the ruined palace in the distance – ivy growing all over it, walls cracked – I can’t help but remember the house from my dream with the silver branches. The park, too, looks similar. Except, instead of palm trees, in Fairy Hunters, the trees are oak; and, instead of a corner shop, there’s the Wicked Woodlands where the wizards live.

Almost an hour later I’m just about to be crowned most valuable player when Dad’s voice floats up from the living room beneath me. ‘Safiya!’ he calls, piercing the bubble that my headphones have formed. ‘Dinner!’

And, just like that, the spell is broken.

Chapter 6

The next day at school everything’s a little strange. The teachers keep talking to me in really high-pitched voices, eyes creased with sympathy. It’s the way strangers talk to Lady in the street. Usually she wees on them in response. She does that a lot when people are nice to her.

As I was getting ready to leave Maths for lunch Ms Belgrave called me over, handed me a pack of sweets and winked, like it was a secret. Except, instead of winking she kind of just twitched her eye. I didn’t wee on her, the way Lady would, I just took the sweets and said thank you.