– Escort me where?

The girls smile.

The little ones begin to play a hand-clap game to keep themselves amused while the older ones keep talking.

– Our wrongs always escort us when it is our time to seek judgement, Agnes says.

– I am not ready!

– You are not the one who decides when you are ready, Mr Udnam. Did you think retribution or repentance only occurs in this life? It rarely does. You will be served for all your sins. You are being given one chance to tell the truth and account for your sins while here in human form and I suggest, Mr Udnam, that you try for the sake of these girls to get – at least that right!

Agnes’s one blue eye swivels toward him.

The pure white one is swirling.

There is ether in there – the other side. It is present inside her. She is a portal and a gate. Agnes has no fear of what is occurring. But she can feel a darker presence grow near.

– They can ask me, I’ll answer.

His shoulders slump.

– Where is our sister?

– Who lit the match?

– Which do I answer first?

– Did you pay a man to burn us to death in our beds as we slept?

– Aye. I did. He was a tenant of mine, on the second floor, he used to shoot the one o’clock gun every day and owed me, for decades, for something only known between me and him. I told him if he didn’t want to go to prison he must do just one thing.

– Our little sisters didn’t die from smoke inhalation, Mr Udnam.

– They died in the fire.

– In the newspapers it said we all died from smoke inhalation, that we were all dead before flames touched our skin. It wasn’t true.

– Where is our sister, Mr Udnam?

– She went to America. She left me!

A heavy tremor goes through each floor of the building.

– We don’t believe you.

– That’s because you are wicked! Liars! Fantasists! Delusional! How do I know you are not evil lying spirits?

The girls speak together in one voice.

– So says the man who murdered us in our beds.

– It was a long time ago, I cannot remember!

– That’s what every evil man says.

– Can’t remember.

– It wasn’t me.

– Don’t ask me or you are wicked.

– Leave it in the past.

– What has to be gained from bringing it up, girls?

– We’ve searched the world and the ether for our sister and she has not appeared yet.

Agnes looks up at the girls.

Each has the bitten lips of an angel – just a step out of the light.

Some of their arms and legs and cheeks are heavily scarred with burn marks.

The two little girls stand up to join the older sisters now and all of them take hands in a row.

Angel wings poke up above their shoulder blades.