Finn appears from the back of the house. ‘What you lads and lassies need is a bit of fun,’ he says. ‘There’s a hill on the other side of the ruin—’

Ruth spins round to look at him, her eyes wide. ‘Vine Hill?’

‘And I’ve got a couple of sledges,’ Finn goes on as though his mother hasn’t spoken. ‘Does anyone fancy a bit of tobogganing?’

Ruth storms from the room, and within seconds Dad’s on his feet.

‘Not for me,’ he says. ‘I’m not here to have fun.’ He heads out of the conservatory without a word, but I can’t bring myself to call him back.

I think how odd his words sounded. From the moment Mum became ill, having fun or enjoying ourselves felt wrong somehow – that if I should laugh or feel happy, then I was being disloyal to her, to Lark, then to my lost baby. Yet at this moment, a part of me wants to whizz down a snowy slope on a sledge and yell and squeal and laugh at the top of my voice.

‘I’m up for it,’ Thomas says. His spinal injury affects his motor skills in his legs, though his sensory functions have always been OK. But I’m still concerned.

‘Do you think you should, Thomas? Dad won’t be happy.’

He glares my way. ‘Life is pretty crap right now, Amelia. I’m going down that slope whether you and Dad like it or not.’ He narrows his eyes. ‘Who’s going to ride with me?’

‘Me!’ says Maddie, and I control an urge to thump her. ‘Let’s do it!’

‘Great!’ Finn says, his cheeks glowing.

Rosamund takes another sip of her drink, and shakes her head. ‘I’m not quite sure how you can all get so excited, after just saying we may have a prowler about, and we’re stranded in this awful place. No offence meant, Finn.’

My mind swirls with all the bad things that have happened, and it’s as though I’m punching them to the back of my mind. ‘Count me in,’ I say, desperately needing to feel the freezing wind on my face – in my hair.

*

It’s snowing again, and the wind is getting up, whipping the snow off the ground so it whirls and twirls in the air, stinging my cheeks.

Finn is ahead of us on his quad bike, Thomas on the back of it, clinging to him. Maddie is pulling one sledge and I’m pulling the other. They’re old, handmade out of wood, sturdy.

‘Almost there,’ calls Finn, over his shoulder, as we make our way past the ruins, his words muffled by the wind.