Whatever had happened, though, she’d paid the ultimate price. I failed to track her to the present day because there were so very, very many people called Claire Simpson in the world, and before I could start to narrow it down I heard a key in the door. I tensed for a second, as I always did just in case it was Dad, even though he’d left his key behind, and then ran at my sister. I hugged her and put my face right down to the bump. ‘Hello, little baby!’ I said. ‘It’s Auntie Ariel!’

Sasha laughed. ‘You’re full of beans! Are you OK? I was worried about you today.’

I’d never kept a secret from Sasha before. Not a proper one. And so I started to tell her. I’d told her about the other ghosts, after all, and she didn’t think I was horrifically mad.

‘I went to Beachview after school,’ I said. ‘You know I said I found that weird little room at the back? On the day Dad left? I went there again and I thought about Mum, considering what day it is, and I cried for ages. Ages, Sash. More than I have since she died.’

‘I thought your face looked a bit puffy,’ she said, touching my cheek. ‘And yeah, today’s the day for it. Me too. But you seem happier.’

‘Yeah. I met …’ I looked at her and stopped. Blue ghosts were one thing. A dead or missing boy, who was living in 1999, but who talked to me here in 2019, was another.

We’d made it through this year, and Sasha had enough going on.

She was looking at me, waiting. ‘You met …?’

‘Well, I didn’t meet anyone.’ I paused. ‘I met some kind of turning point. The end of a shit year. Something changed, you know? I met the point where I just had to confront things, and so I let it all out and, for the first time, it made things seem a bit better. And now I feel, like, isn’t it actually amazing to be alive? To be here, in real life, living in the world? I know there’s loads that’s shit.’ Sasha frowned and put her hand on her bump. ‘I won’t say “shit” once he’s born, don’t worry. But I’ve got you, and we’ve got the baby, and we have this house to live in and enough money. We made it through a year. We’re lucky. We’re on Earth for such a short time. Let’s make the most of it, yeah? That’s what Mum would want.’

‘Well.’ She laughed. ‘Wow. Let me harness that energy, babes. I could do with a bit of that.’

I took her hand and tried to zing positivity into her. She pretended she’d had an electric shock.