Kaye creaked over in her bed. Even the act of rolling onto her side was unbearable. Her body was giving up. Giving up the ghost, it was called. But it was really the opposite. She was actually becoming a ghost. She opened her eyes and allowed them to adjust to the darkness. Way far away she heard Tchaikovsky. It was as though it entered her body not through her failing ears, but through her chest and straight into her heart, where the notes lodged. It was almost too much to bear. Kaye took a deep, rattling breath, and nearly cried out for Émilie to stop. Stop that divine music. But she didn’t. She loved her friend too much to deny her this time with David.

The music made her think of another child. Crie. Who called their child Crie? Cry? Names mattered, Kaye knew. Words mattered. That child had sung like an angel tonight and she’d made them all divine, more than human, for a brief time. But with a few well chosen words her mother had made ugly what minutes before had been exquisite. CC was like an alchemist, with the unlikely gift of turning gold into lead.

What had Crie’s mother heard that could have provoked such a reaction? Surely she hadn’t heard the same voice. Or maybe she had and that was the problem. And maybe she heard other voices as well.

She wouldn’t be the first.

Kaye tried to shove that thought away, but it kept intruding. And another thought, another voice, appeared, lyrical and Irish and masculine and kind.

‘You should have helped that child. Why didn’t you do something?’

It was always the same question and always the same answer. She was afraid. Had been afraid all her life.

Here it is then, the dark thing,

the dark thing you have waited for so long.

And after all, it is nothing new.

The lines of Ruth Zardo’s poem floated into her mind. Tonight the dark thing had a name and a face and a pink dress.

The dark thing wasn’t CC, it was the accusation that was Crie.

Kaye shifted her gaze, her fists balled in the flannel sheet under her chin, trying to keep warm. She hadn’t really been warm in years. Her eyes caught the red numbers on her digital clock. Three o’clock. And here she was in her trench. Cold and trembling. She’d had a chance this night to redeem herself for all those moments of cowardice in her life. All she had to do was defend the child.

Kaye knew the signal would soon be given. And soon she’d have to crawl out of her trench and face what was coming. But she wasn’t ready yet. Not yet. Please.

Damn, damn that woman.