She could heat only this one room and stay here until spring arrives or the building falls. It’s uncertain which will happen first. If they were able to bury the building whole, it would do everyone (but her) a favour. A graveyard for buildings would be amazing! The gravediggers would have to be giants. The tombstones, vast graffitied walls. No. 10 Luckenbooth Close has been eaten by some kind of bug that taps at night – and now throughout most of the day too. It’s not just that No. 10 Luckenbooth Close is about to die and be reborn – nor that it will be wholly gutted and rebuilt from the bones up – it is the death of all its secrets. The longer she stays here, the more she thinks about it.

Washes her hands in a cold sink.

Brushes out her long hair.

Stares at gouges on the wall in her bathroom.

They were not there before. She traces them with her fingertips – they are rough and deep. Like somebody dragged a knife down there. Or something else sharp. It has to have been when she was out. There is a clatter somewhere in the building and she jumps – heart racing.

Candles burn.

Flames lilt this way and that.

Shadows reach out for her from the bathroom walls. They chase each other around the roof and nudge along the side of the bathtub. Long shadow noses peer. City streets snake around the building like a noose. Spirits will be awake all night. One perched on the loo. Another is in the hallway chain-smoking. Two are in the lounge, playing chess in the ether. The spirits hate her, they love her, they ignore her, they are obsessed with her. She is fixated on them too. Dot is not about to be dead again. It was bad enough last time. Next time she goes through the veil, it will be to stay gone. The spirits of the netherworld feel as deprived of love as she has always been.

It’s why they come to her and it’s why she goes to them.

It’s always been that way.

She has no judgement.

Dot pours a whisky into her coffee. She’ll be down to the Buckfast soon.

The hoofs… they’re back.

Clear steps move up toward her from the floors below.

Her fire crackles and spits.

Dot finishes the whisky quickly.