‘When I arrived back at the house empty-handed, I went in search of an unlocked window to slip through. I hoped I might find a forgotten jar of jam or tin of sardines inside. I was astonished when the front door opened, and a butler appeared. He insisted I come inside. There were fires in the grates, furniture in every room and not a dustsheet in sight. A lovely lady introduced herself as Lady Mandeville. She said they had been expecting me, and that I was a distant relative. But I knew that couldn’t possibly be true. They were so different to anyone I had ever known, their clothes and hair, everything about them.

‘When I was introduced to Lady Mandeville’s daughter, Leonora, she promised that we would be the very best of friends. I was in a dream. But it was one I never wanted to wake up from. You see, I had nothing to go back for. After a few days, I began to think that this was what happened to children who lost their family, they were allowed to choose the life they wanted to go to. I was still young enough to be fond of books where children slipped in and out of time so accepted that it was something that could happen to me. Even so, I knew that I shouldn’t talk about my previous life, that it was somehow forbidden.

‘Soon, days in Hill House turned to weeks, weeks to months and months to years. I was so very happy there with the Mandevilles and Leo. I could come and go as I pleased from the house and always remained in that wonderful Victorian world. Soon, it was my old life that began to feel like a dream. I never forgot it, but I was able to distance myself from the horrible memories. I was educated with Leo, and we shared our lives, our thoughts, our hopes, our dreams. I’m afraid I rather turned Leo’s head. We planned that we would go to university together. If men could, so could we. I had been raised to believe that I was the equal of any man. My mother and father were intellectuals and rather revolutionary in their thinking and my grandmother had been a campaigner for universal suffrage. Even as a child in the Victorian times, the beliefs my real family instilled in me never left.’

Elizabeth paused. She looked into the fire and then back to Lou.

‘I always knew Leo was somehow the key to my being at Hill House, but I also knew that I wasn’t supposed to say anything to her about my life before. After I had been in Hill House a few years, she began to talk in her sleep. The first time I heard her, I was afraid she was ill. I soon learned to listen to what she had to say. She told me things about Hill House. How I was chosen. How I was the “one.”