She looked at her parents, sat stern and upright in cold, heartless silence, staring straight ahead. They could be asleep and Daphne wanted to shake them and scream into their faces. To reason with them and plead. But they never listened. Their expressionless faces refused to look at her and she felt more alone than ever.

Daphne considered love, and thought of the boy from the stone circle. She’d read about passion, and hate, and all the emotions that could possibly swim through her body at one time. She knew loathing, and she knew revenge, as well as fear, dread, sorrow and despair. But she didn’t know love. She didn’t see it, so she couldn’t define it. But ever since meeting Callum at the circle, her foundations, and what she’d built them on, had begun to shake.

There were plenty of opportunities for her to vanish from the life Father had created for them. They’d existed on the fringes of society, like gypsies and travellers, in forests, in caravans and tents, for so long now that her disappearance would be irrelevant.

Had that been what she was doing the night she’d found herself naked and wandering around the huge stones? Disappearing? She couldn’t remember.

Neither could she remember what brought her back. It was as if some force took her hand and opened the hospital window, made her feet climb out and her legs jump to the electric box and then to the ground, running for her life, towards the old farm. As soon as she’d opened the door, she knew why she’d come back. She saw it now, in her parents, erect and vacant at the same time.

She wanted to shake them and scream. But the house was silent, except for the flies. Father liked it that way. She left them and went to her room to watch TV on her laptop, with the volume on silent. She viewed the characters on screen with odd fascination, and she considered herself lucky to be protected from it. The behaviour of the actors was puzzling. They were all so animated and loud. She could tell this even with no sound. It was a dangerous world out there, that’s what her parents told her, and maybe that’s why she’d come back.