‘Sort of. Pete Potts drove me, and then Efa and I flew …’

‘Pete Potts?!’ she exclaims. ‘And you flew? Actually, tell me later. We have to go. Elin’s called the police, and if they turn up we won’t be able to explain how you got here. It could get very messy. Where’s Pete? Could he drive us back?’

‘No. We had a bit of a car accident.’

‘Car accident?! Are you all right –’

‘I’m fine, Mum,’ I say. ‘Here.’ I reach through the layers of my clothes to the pocket of my T-shirt. I offer Mum her talisman, which I grabbed as we drove away from the circus last night.

‘Oh, darling, thank you.’ She holds it hard in her fist for a moment before slipping it into her pants pocket. She looks around the room and makes her bed with the whisk of a finger.

There’s a loud clunk from upstairs and Elin’s distant voice. ‘Merry? Are you coming up?’

In the kitchen, Mum calls up the stairs. ‘Yes, in a moment.’ She scribbles a note on a sheet of paper. I’m sorry, Elin, but I’ve had to go home – there was afamily emergency. Don’t worry about me. So sorry to leave like this. Love to the kids. Merry. xxx

She puts the pen down. ‘I hate to disappear without telling them in person.’

I can’t help saying, ‘Which is how it was for us.’

‘I know. I made a terrible mistake.’ She strokes my cheek. I hear her thinking, I’m so sorry, my darling.

The laundry door is half open and snow has blown in over the floor. As I drag on my boots, Mum asks, ‘How did you get on with Sylvie?’

‘She can be a bit … prickly. But she believes in me as a magician.’

‘And I didn’t.’ Her face is sad.

‘No, you didn’t.’

She gives my hand a squeeze as we step out into the storm. The wind flings snow and sleet at us, hard and icy. It finds its way down my neck and I adjust my scarf. Now I understand why someone invented balaclavas.

We stagger through the snow and find some shelter under an overhanging roof around the back of the greenhouse. The swirling snow is so thick we can barely see a few metres in front of us.

‘I need to get to that tree over there,’ I say. ‘My energy’s dropping really fast.’

‘It’s so weird to hear you say that,’ says Mum. ‘I think we should get ourselves into the forest, away from the house, and then figure out our options.’

My fingers give a huge sizzle just as a woman’s voice comes from behind us. ‘Maybe I can help.’

She’s just a dark shape in the snowstorm, but I’d recognise that voice anywhere. ‘Sylvie!’ I say. ‘I didn’t think you could come!’