But when I came back with the only ice I’d been able to find – the snaplock bag full of holy water – Bruce had already walked Merry outside.

Tate and I stood in the hallway for a moment, sobered a little by the stench of vomit.

‘What do we do?’ said Tate. He ran his hands through his hair. ‘It’s everywhere.’

I sent him to bed. He took the bag of ice.

The first effort I made to clean up – my hair loose, feet tangled in my long floral dress – was less than helpful. It amounted, more or less, to taking some towels from the bathroom – the nice fluffy towels, I was drunk – and casting them gently over the scene.

It was only the next morning, with rubber gloves, a headscarf, and a bucket and scrubbing brush that I really set to work on the mess Merry had left. I made the water as hot as I could and it scalded me even through the gloves. I scrubbed the carpet, and the walls, and was amazed at how well things came up; by the time I was finished and everything had dried, the only way you would have been able to spot the stains was if you knew they were there in the first place.

The smell, though. The smell was another matter. We used everything we could think of: bicarbonate of soda and vinegar, lemon juice, odour-killing drops, tea-tree oil. We managed to expel most of it, but when you opened the front door, especially when the weather was warm, there was for years after a slight acrid smell, and the slight nausea that accompanied it.

I never mentioned this to Merry. And she never said a word about it the many times she came to visit after that night. Soon my nails were long and french-tipped. Soon I had bangs. Soon Tate packed away his sheet, his camera. And whenever I come into my house alone, I make sure to take a deep breath right in the place where the smell was the worst. A private thing, like a prayer, like a confession. If there are any spirits in this house, I hope it makes them happy. Or at least, I hope it keeps them from hurting us; I hope it’s enough to stop our good luck from running out.

Future Moon

If you are reading this, you have twenty-eight days to tell twenty-eight people my story. Or else.

Or else what? you say.

Or else I will find you, and you will join me at the bottom of the well.

That is my story: they pushed me down a well.

I’ve had a lot of time to think since I’ve been here. I look up and see a disc of sky, blue all day and black all night.

Didn’t you call out? I hear you ask. Didn’t you scream?

Yes, and yes. But there was only the moon to hear me.