I exhaled and turned off the lamp. Inspected my hand again, to be sure. My skin was absolutely fine. That meant, according to the encyclopaedia, that I did not have an extreme case, which also meant that I was very unlikely to experience the other awful symptoms I had looked up. I frowned. If I didn’t have an extreme version of the condition did that mean light exposure would not kill me? With a sudden jolt, I realized something else: nowhere in the text did it say that SU made you die young. According to the big book, as long as a person stayed out of sunlight, they did not run the risk of dying. So why did Mother always say that dolls lived short lives? Was there something else wrong with me? Some incurable disease she’d never told me about?

I shook my head. No.

I nibbled on my nail, realized, stopped. Mother would be mad if I ruined my nails.

Suddenly I felt like screaming and hitting my fists against the walls. I stood and paced the small room, panic licking me like searing flames. My eyes fell on the frilly pink curtains that were nailed into the wall. The centre of the curtains was sewn together in a neat cross-stitch. I had never tried to unpick those stitches, but now I wondered. Were boards nailed over the windows behind the curtains, or was there nothing but glass behind the thick pink material?

Be brave. Find out. But take precautions.

There was a pair of nail scissors in the bathroom. I hurried out of my room, retrieved them from the bathroom cabinet and froze. Deadly was sitting on the door frame at my eye level, poised to attack. My heart raced. I could rush past him and hope he didn’t jump at me or … I scanned the room. My gaze landed on the bar of soap on the sink. I picked it up. It was slippery and gross. I took aim, inhaled and fired. The soap hit the door frame above Deadly. He didn’t even flinch. I looked at him, wondered what he was thinking. I’d attacked him so he had a right to attack me now, which was probably his plan.

There was no time so I grabbed the flannel from the side of the bath and folded it in half so it was thick but not too small. Keeping my upper body dead still, I raised the flannel and crept towards him.

Deadly remained in his place, bold and arrogant.

I stared at him. My enemy.

I stopped a safe distance away, my heart jittering.

He was so big but so small at the same time. I looked at the flannel in my hand. Looked back at Deadly. He stayed where he was. Was it possible that he was just as afraid of me as I was of him? Too frightened to move, not too evil to be afraid.