The rest of the cabins are in a grim state of repair, their doors and facades peppered with gunshots like constellations of black stars. Inside, the floors are littered with great mountainous piles of poop, rusting metal cans and little shiny pieces of broken crockery.

‘Treasure,’ Emmy says hopefully, dropping to the ground.

‘Rubbish,’ Jack says dismissively. He kicks a can against the wall.

The seventh and final cabin is bigger than the others, a long rectangular building with nine windows down each length and a wide porch wrapping around three sides. This was once the main boarding quarters of the town, housing both the kitchen and dormitories. We circle the outside, sizing it up. A hefty chunk of the side porch is covered by a bush with a trunk the colour of ox blood, its texture so smooth it feels as if it’s been planed and sanded by a sculptor. A length of mosquito netting has been nailed over the front porch and the rusted spring base of an old mattress leant up against the hand rail. A workman’s boot sits on top of a lubricant barrel as if admiring the view, which, to be fair, is spectacular. I shade my eyes against the sun. I can feel its strength now, almost as though someone has placed a warm iron on my back. The snow on the mountains looks like a wash of silver. There’s nothing that far out, not a telegraph pole, or pylon, not a house, or a road or a living soul to be seen.

‘What’s that?’ Emmy whispers. The fly screen is banging rhythmically against a mouldering door frame.

‘Wowaaaaaaa.’ Jack waves his arms around his head in the universally accepted impersonation of a person wearing a white sheet with snipped-out eyes.

‘Ghosts?’ Emmy, the uncynical, queries, wide-eyed.

We stare at the fly screen as it opens and shuts but if it’s not from ghosts, it must be from boredom because there’s not a whisper of wind. Not a shrivelled leaf moves on the oak trees. The air is absolutely still.

‘Come on,’ I tell the children, ‘there are no ghosts here.’ But of course this isn’t true.