I am supposed to pick 12 women who have touched my life and whom I think might participate. I think that if this group of women were ever to be in a room together there is nothing that wouldn’t be impossible. I hope I chose the right 12. May my hugs, love, gestures, and communications remind you how special you are. Please send this back to me. Make a wish before you read the quotation. That’s all you have to do. There is nothing attached. Just send this to 12 women and let me know what happens on the fourth day. Did you make your wish yet? If you don’t make a wish, it won’t come true. This is your last chance to make a wish! Quotation: ‘May today there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content with yourself just the way you are. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us.’ Now, send this to 12 women (or more) (you can copy & paste) within the next 5 minutes. In addition, remember to send back to me. I count as one. You’ll see why xxxxxx

I instantly feel harassed. I stare at the text for a moment. As I’m staring, another text from her arrives.

How r u? xx

It doesn’t feel right that someone older than me abbreviates more than I do, but this is the way it is. She texts me approximately once a week. When I ignore her, she turns up in my dreams. The other night she was in the doorway of my room, wearing a pair of wings – fine-boned and iridescent, like a dragonfly’s. They glistened in the moonlight. When she turns up like that I have to remind myself that the visions are only my version of her – the real her is three hundred miles away.

I close my eyes and see it. That house. Mock Tudor. Mock everything. Our street was adjacent to a big-dog housing estate and the kids would come and chuck crab apples at the garage doors. I’d look down from my turret bedroom window, feeling quite the oppressed royal. Someone wrote ‘WITCH’ in chalk on the wall and my mother looked at it proudly while I burned. Thousands of years ago, witches were respected as healers, she said. They were wise women in the community.

And then we got doctors, I said.

Did we, though, she said, did we ever really ‘get’ doctors like we got witches? What I’m talking about is a gift, not a career choice.