‘Sarah.’ She stands in front of me, hands on hips, bent so that her face is level with mine. ‘Work. We need food.’

I look ahead at the golden flecks falling between us, her face a blur behind them. Annie shakes my shoulders. There are patches of light in the shadow – not a welcoming light, a flare, a blaze. Eyes.

Mam snaps her fingers.

There is more. The shadow is heavy and deep now. Searing eyes. Spines. And—

‘What is it?’ Mam asks. ‘What can you see?’

Breath blocks my throat, the word grates out of me. ‘Teeth.’

‘Where?’ Annie says. ‘Whose teeth?’

Mam crouches in front of me, squeezed between the wall and my mat, hand on my knee. ‘Don’t be feared. It’s your familiar.’

I’ve stared so long that water fills my eyes and slips down my face, I see nothing but colours before me and still the blackness at the edge, twisting, clearer with every second. It is forming, growing, spreading, and I cannot hold it back. The teeth stretch open and I smell the sour, ashy breath, feel the sting of those eyes. And hear it. The sound, deep and low, shaking me from inside.

‘It is here.’

‘Set it free,’ Mam says.

But I cannot. Not yet. Dew-Springer is gentle, harmless. At least to us. I have conjured some foul and fearsome creature. What if it invades my whole being and warps the very nature of me? ‘Can you hear it?’ I ask, my voice thin as a trickle of rain.

The sound grows, I can feel it in me, hear it around me.

‘Can you hear the snarling?’ I ask.

I hear Mam’s voice, as though over a distance. ‘’Tis for you alone.’

The sunbeam spiral is a haze, hidden by the tears pouring from my smarting eyes. Feared to blink, to lose this light. Breath fast and shallow, gone before I can catch it. I bunch the blanket in my fingers, grip so I will not be spun away.

I can hold out no longer. Blink.

In the moment of blackness its face is clear in front of me, great slavering dog, teeth bared, eyes scorched. Smell of burning. And the sound. Around me, inside me, shaking my bones.

Opening my eyes, I see Mam. See all that she has ever been, clear as never before, knowing my memories are truth. I beckon, and she leans in.

‘I know you,’ I whisper.

She laughs. ‘Of course. I’m your—’

‘I know what you did,’ I say. ‘I know where you laid them. Every one.’

The crack of her palm across my face is a blast of pain so sharp that my vision fills with lights. But I do not flinch. The dog is with me now, and its strength shall also be my own.

Unfurled