‘We’d better get to our own beds now. Pull the netting over you, Iremonger, or you’ll be so red and swelled up tomorrow you shan’t do anything but moan and weep.’

‘And scratch. Scratch and scratch.’

As we all ran back to our beds I watched our shadows dancing in the candlelight, but then I saw it wasn’t our shadows moving but great congregations of insects scattering about the floor, hurriedly fleeing.

‘Thank you for telling us your story, Lossy Iremonger.’

‘Lucy Pennant.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I’ll tell it to you whenever you like,’ I said.

‘Will you?’

‘Will you?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘We’d love that.’

‘I shall never forget it,’ I said.

‘That’s the spirit,’ someone called.

‘Everyone says that at first, but they always do in the end.’

‘Maybe she won’t.’

Somehow, at some point, though my legs were scratched and bleeding a little, and my arm so stiff, I found more sleep.