– This is a trick. It’s witchcraft, you hear me? I can have you put in prison!

Mr Udnam points at Agnes and Archie stands up, ready to go for the man if he moves toward his wife.

– No, it’s not, Agnes states.

– Elise went to New York when she left me. This is not real…

Elise turns to him.

– You would lie to my face after what you did?

A dark energy warms the room.

Agnes levitates slightly.

The sisters rise up into the air.

Wings flutter. A breeze lifts papers on the sideboard. The sisters’ voices are like bells. Mr Udnam recedes – all of their eyes are on him.

– We can smell blood on your skin.

The sisters say it together. Around the walls, five sets of wings open as shadows.

– You can’t feel pity for her – she’s the devil’s daughter, her father came to me on the day she died and he asked for her head because of what she did to him… ask her about that!

– We can’t pick our fathers.

– Elise loves a monster!

He points at Jessie.

– My father sold me to him, Jessie says.

– Why?

Agnes asks it quietly.

– To give him a grandchild that would be raised with all privileges possible.

– Why?

– So his descendants could destroy what God made. The world and all good people in it!

Hope clings to her leg, peeping out at Mr Udnam.

– She’s scared of me!

– My child is not scared of anyone.

Jessie’s horns are even longer and sharper than they were in her mortal life.

– Mr Udnam – you murdered my sisters, because they came looking fir me…

Elise does not shrink back in spirit. His heartbeat pounds in his neck and temples. He tries to swallow. Jessie’s horns glint in the candlelight. Agnes prays for all of them and the sisters join in as the layers between the worlds peel back.

– Dear God, thou art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive those who trespassed before us, for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever, amen!

The smallest girl, Mary, closes her eyes and extends her arms out. She is feeling something that none of the rest of them can quite see yet. The youngest child is open to visions past and future in a way none of her sisters are.

– There’s a big knife… and he’s running up to Jessie.

She says it in a very quiet voice.

Agnes feels a burning sensation.

Pain like she has never felt.