Emma looked up at me. ‘Oh. Is she a bad lady?’

‘Yes, but she can’t hurt us any more. We’re free. Everything will be OK now. Shall we go a little faster? Remember, Patrick needs us to find someone to help him.’

Emma nodded.

We picked up our pace, breaking into a half-run. The clouds drifted off the sun, which beat down on us, making sweat drip down our faces and backs, but we kept up the pace, Emma’s sweaty hand in my sweaty hand, which burned and throbbed from the bleach and my unhealed wound.

The dirt road seemed to go on for ever, as did the woods on either side. I considered branching off the road into the woods to look for a footpath of some kind that might lead us to a house or farm, but the woods looked dense and the fear of getting lost or coming across an evil, witchy woman like Hansel and Gretel did in the fairy tale prevented me from following that idea. Instead, I urged Emma to keep up our half-run and tried to ignore the pains in my thigh muscles. My body was not used to this sort of exercise. Emma seemed to be bearing up better than me.

‘Polly, can we sing a song?’ she said, smiling up at me.

I was panting now and my instinct was to say no but the keenness in her eyes stopped me.

‘Which one?’ I said, knowing that I did not know many songs.

‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,’ she said and she began to sing.

Mother had sung this song to me before bed when I was little. The thought was disturbing. Memories of Mother reading me bedtime stories drifted into my head and I crushed them, fighting the strange, sick feeling that accompanied the memories. Sometimes she had been so loving, such a good mother. It had been easy to believe her lies when I was younger, when I was her perfect little doll.

I joined in with Emma’s song and we ran hand in hand along the dirt road, Mother’s keys jangling in my free hand, my head aching from the light and my toes blistering from my loose slippers. I dropped the keys. I wouldn’t need them any more.