“I really wouldn’t know.” She turned toward me again, irritated now. “It’s a game, Dad. It helps me not to think.” She turned to the screen again. “You can watch, but I need to concentrate.”

That question of Tvist’s: it could wait until she was more receptive.

I walked across the floor, through the door into her sister’s room. I opened the blind. I lifted the latch, tilted the window open. Beyond the hedge I could see dogs running lazy arcs across the open parkland, crazed in the heat of the sun.

Around me, everything as Licia had left it. No pictures. No mess. Everything simple and unadorned, tidy and orderly, though the mirror was coated in dust, as if appearance did not much matter to Licia; as if the way she looked were merely a detail. So strange for a teenage girl to be unaffected by the usual social pressures. It had gotten so that we almost wished Licia would share the normal teen neuroses, we would joke, that she would put herself out there on Instagram, make a few very public mistakes. At the very least she could go out and have some proper fun.

The dress Licia had worn to the island had been so uncharacteristic. How lovely to see her looking so young and so poised.

World at your feet, Licia.

On the desk was a recent edition of the Bible, and beside the Bible a small pile of math books. By Licia’s mirror was a poem written on plain card:

Be simple

Be pure

Be true to the faith

Be mindful

Be kind

Be true

The card was torn at the end, cut vertically after the word true, as if the lines were part of a longer poem. I took the card, turned it over. On the reverse was a handwritten note:

You are exceptional, Licia.

You will achieve the exceptional.

Until that day keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Remember to breathe!

She had written the note to herself. My sweet Licia, so dogged and so determined to succeed. She had signed and dated the note. Six months ago.

I felt a sob threatening to engulf me. But I would not let myself cry; not now, while Vee was being so strangely adult. I walked back into Vee’s room, sat on the table beside her screen, facing her. Her eyes flicked to me, then to the screen. Her gunsight hovered over a distant figure.

“You know your mum was a good shot, Vee . . .”

She shook her head. “Was she?”

“She never told you? She could down twelve single foot-square metal plates at one hundred meters. Eight seconds. With a .22 pistol.”

She sighed. “I get where this is going. You think I’m a weirdo sicko freak for playing this.”

“We don’t. As I was saying, your mum—”