Back in Mum’s flat I’m seeing things I’ve never noticed before, like everything has a gold halo around it. The table in her hallway looks just like the one that held the bracelet in the dream, the photos on the walls do as well, and the plants that make her flat feel alive. They’re real, all of them.

So, what if the dreams are real too?

As I approach Mum’s bedroom door her perfume beckons me in. I follow it like Alice followed the rabbit to Wonderland.

I walk over to the dressing table, open Mum’s jewellery drawer, and find it packed with beautiful shining gems. Earrings, bracelets, necklaces. It’s like finding loot in a game. Except there’s only one thing I need.

When I see it, tucked away at the back, like it hasn’t been worn for years, my legs start to wobble. It feels like a butterfly is lodged in my throat, fluttering from my chest right up to my oesophagus. It’s real. Mum’s bracelet is real.

I reach out for it, feeling the smooth gold, tracing my fingers over her name.

Aminah.

It’s exactly as it looked in the dream. But the thing is, I’ve never seen this bracelet before in real life.

Chapter 11

The house is quieter today, like a forest after rainfall. I walk up to the glass table, just as I did last time, but the bracelet is no longer there. Instead it’s dangling from my wrist after I put it on in Mum’s flat.

It makes me feel closer to her somehow, and braver too. Like the bracelet is my armour, and I’m ready to go into battle.

A familiar smell draws me to the kitchen. I walk across the marble-floored foyer, bypassing the stairs, and enter another leafy tunnel.

I know this house is Mum’s childhood home but it feels different, more like it’s a living creature rather than just a house. The heartbeat follows me as I walk, drumming to my steps. When I enter the kitchen I’m met with the biggest feast I’ve seen in my life. I recognize some of it from dishes Mum’s cooked before.

Stuffed vine leaves, zaatar bread and cheese, stacks of sugar sweets and honeysuckle melon, and lots and lots of tea. I peer around to see if I can find the person who made all this food, but no one is there, and I hear nothing but the pulse of the house, and the thump, thump, thumping in my chest.

I sit down, reach for a stuffed vine leaf, and take a bite. It’s delicious.