Rose didn’t know what they were ready for. Then her mother yelled, ‘Go,’ and hurled the plate at the wall so hard it smashed into what must have been a thousand pieces.

They broke everything they could. It was amazing. But afterwards, Rose felt an emptiness inside her, hard and strangely solid, like she was hungrier than she had ever been before, but was too full to eat.

They follow the road, between the hedges. She is tired. The road curls. She feels like she is travelling in circles.

She remembers the house. The dark. Dillon, on the stairs. If she closes her eyes she can hear him.

‘Rose!’

The car swerves. Sticks clatter against the wing mirror, then she’s up on the other bank and then down again with a bump. The engine cuts out.

Aaron grins, excitedly.

‘Sorry.’

The engine starts again, and they curl on, between hedges. Her hands grip tight on the wheel. They turn a corner, and roll to a slow stop.

They are here.

The wooden gate is set in a low brick wall. The garden is small, trim, lined with busy clipped box hedges and a tiny twisting paved path. Roses climb the whitewashed walls, hanging low over a bench, and beside it, a birdbath. The roof is a smooth curve of perfect thatch over twinkling black timber-framed windows, capped with a squat chimney.

Behind the wheel of the car, Rose closes her eyes. She breathes deeply. In her pocket she fingers the hard shapes of the key she took from Titch’s kitchen two weeks ago.

Aaron gazes in awe. It seems like a house from a dream, not one that you might go into. It is a house from a book, from a fairy tale.

He expects dwarves. Or bears. Or best of all, gingerbread.

The smell is what strikes them first. You might expect a house like this to smell damp, and old, but there is a rich vanilla scent that greets them. The porch is dark, but they see curling leaves covering the walls. They find the light. The leaves are filled with birds, bright parrots perching in the wallpapered foliage.

And on. Through the next door. A hall, a mirror, a light hanging down in green glass. Stairs rising up. Cream carpets, rich and full. Another door, a living room, huge, extending back into a bright white kitchen under the glass of an extension. They walk through. The light is golden. Beyond the extension they see a garden, stretching back in parallel stripes, borders heavy with hanging leaves. In the centre of the lawn is a perfect circle of earth, and an apple tree grows out of it. All around the base are scattered apples, left to rot.

The wide space of the extension is filled with a long table made of a rich, red wood. A lamp hangs over it, suspended on a curved sliver of metal. In the opposite corner is a wood-burning stove, and a deep cream sofa.