I try to nod but nothing is working. I wonder where Igor and the men who speak in the devil’s tongue are, and just as if she can read my thoughts, she says, ‘They have gone … their job was to deliver us.’

To deliver us from evil … I try to remember how the rest of that sentence goes, but it blurs at the edges and moves away from me.

‘We’re going to another country, beside England, another island,’ she says. All my life lived on the same patch of ground between home and school and forest and river, then in days, weeks, months – I don’t know, I’ve no idea how much time has passed, although I think it may only be days, maybe tens of them – I’m transported on boats, in airplanes, in cars, the ground moving beneath my feet, my feet having no say over where they go. I wonder if my birthday’s come and gone – if I’m thirteen yet.

I think back to the Kingdom of our Tree and the fairy caps. Luca brought bad luck when he pulled them before they were ready to let go. Are he and Maria happy together now, swimming in the watering hole, climbing the old fellow, without me there? Is Luca teasing Maria about being able to see up her dress? Is Mama being kind to the old dog? Maybe she managed to break her binds and run away; maybe she’s running loose under the canopy of trees, maybe she knows now what would poison, and what would feed. Maybe.

Magda is lying on the bed beside me, cradling my head in her hands. ‘Can you sit up?’ She puts one hand behind my shoulders and lifts me so I’m sitting, and holds a glass of water to my lips. ‘Little sips,’ she says. ‘What is it, little one? What are you staring at?’

I cannot speak.

‘There’s nothing there. It’s ok, there’s nothing there,’ and then she pours water into her hands and cups her wet palms over my eyes. She tells me that we can stay together. She has made them promise her that.

Slowly, my eyes start to blink and clear themselves of the stinging grit. Magda leans in and kisses me on the forehead, over and over, the way Mama did the day before I left. As I come to, I realise there’s no movement, the ground beneath this place is not going anywhere. I don’t think I can face another voyage, confined in another small space. Of all, the worst was the van with the music, the harsh tongues, the smell of fear from the other girls, their crying, their silence, the smoke, the cursing, the lack of air, the rain drumming down on the roof, like pounding hands. Of all, that was the worst. I can’t do that again.

A man walks in. ‘How is she? Can she walk?’