‘I’m not sure I know how to explain. Alexandra was always so used to being the center of attention. It was pretty common for everyone to gush over her and compliment her perfect manners. And then a new little girl – Sasha – moved just down the road from us. They hit it off right away, but a few weeks later, when school started back up, things changed.’ His fingers moved to drum on the arm of the chair, sending little dust motes to float in the air between them.

‘The teachers loved Sasha. Everyone did, including the other kids. The boys, the girls, just everyone. It took about a week before I noticed the way Alex would go silent or grow inexplicably angry anytime Sasha’s name was brought up. But then about a month into their school year, Alexandra asked if Sasha could sleep over. Of course, Helen and I agreed.

‘The next morning, when the girls woke, Sasha had a huge bald spot where her hair had been sheared off. It was so bad, the only way to fix it was for her parents to buy her a wig or shave her head.’

Immediately, the image of Elizabeth’s shorn ponytail popped into Alyssa’s mind.

‘Alex insisted Sasha must’ve been sleepwalking, but I will swear to the day I die that there was something dark in my daughter’s eyes when she said it. Later that day when Sasha went out to feed her new bunnies that they kept in the barn… I’ll spare you the details and just assure you they were no longer alive.’

Alyssa’s gaze flickered over to Cord to gauge his reaction, but he was busy jotting notes in his tablet.

Alexander continued. ‘That evening, I was throwing in some laundry and discovered so much blood on Alex’s pajamas, it looked like she’d bathed in it. When I questioned her, she denied knowing what had happened. Let me just skip the rest and cut to the end scene. Over time, I began to fear for my life, as well as my wife’s, but Helen was afraid of what people might think if we sent our own very young daughter away for help. Especially since I’d been doing some research. Now, I’m not what one might call experienced on the internet – never found a real need for it – but what I found out was that, while it might be exceedingly rare for a prepubescent child to be diagnosed with a severe psychosis, it was still possible.