When Mum walks in, she glances at the walls and shivers. She won’t admit it, but it’s taken the gloss off her dream-home high.

Sitting on the edge of my bed, she sighs and says, “I keep telling myself it was a silly game. You drew on the walls sometimes when you were little, so this…maybe it’s the same sort of thing.”

I know what she’s about to say, and I wish she wouldn’t. I hate how she’s remembering all the lives she’s left behind, all the false starts.

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “You’re probably right. It was probably just a game.”

“I hope so,” she says, staring at the tiny pleas and not looking away.

I could show Mum the lock I bought, because she’d believe me now. I could hold it up to the door and add to the evidence, but something stops me. She looks sad enough, and I don’t want to make it worse.

I was too young to save my mother from the monsters.

She had to save both of us. But I can save Amy.

I watch Mum for a while, lost in a daydream, then squeeze her hand and say, “It’s still nice here.”

She smiles, and I hope she believes me. I don’t want to take her happiness away, even for a second.

“We did okay, didn’t we?” she says.

“We did great.”

She nods and kisses me good night. Later, as I go downstairs, I see her through the crack in her bedroom door, still staring off into space while Jay snores by her side. I check the back door three, four, five times, then again once I’ve tightened the kitchen taps and pushed against the window locks.

I whisper, “Clap,” doubt myself, then say it again after the seventh check.

I’m worse when I’m worried. On good days, I can touch everything once and sleep like a baby. On the worst days, I check everything twenty or thirty times and only make it halfway up the stairs before doing it all again. I know it’s silly. I know it’s irrational. But it’s part of me, and it’s not going anywhere.

It hasn’t always been. It started when we lived with Martin. Before she knew better, Mum called them “nervous tics.” I would touch the same thing over and over again or wash my hands until my knuckles cracked, the tiny cuts yawning wider and stinging sharper whenever I moved my fingers.

It wasn’t until we lived alone that I began checking the windows and doors.

I used to be scared for just us, but now I’m scared for someone else too. That’s why I can’t settle even when I’m back in my room.