I frowned at the black-and-white photograph of the little girl. She was smiling. She looked so happy. Even though the photo wasn’t in colour, I could tell that this little girl had fair hair. She also had a small button nose and a heart-shaped face. And she wore the dress with the label sewn into its collar.

Chapter 14

Mother didn’t come to see if I was all right. She didn’t call me for dinner either, so I had nothing to eat and spent the entire night trying to convince myself that the article and the things Clarabelle had told me meant nothing.

I would not look at the article again. Even thinking about the words on that yellowed piece of paper made my heart drum, yet they were all I could think about.

The next morning I stayed in my bedroom, half-hoping Mother would call me down to paint me, half-hoping she would leave me alone. She didn’t call me. At midday she left the house and I snuck downstairs into the kitchen to make myself a sandwich. My movements were robotic, my mind dazed with tiredness and I jumped when the strange sound came. I whipped my head towards the blinds and hurried across the room, heart thudding. There was definitely something out there. Out in the back garden. Mother had driven away, so it wasn’t her making the sound, which made me begin to wonder. My mind went to a dark place so quickly I surprised myself. I shook my head and put my ear to the blinds. I listened. The sound was half-banging, half-crowing, like some injured animal was out there in the other world alone and in pain. I looked at the kitchen door, thought about the newspaper article. I thought about the bread crusts. Shook my head again. No. It wasn’t what I thought it was. Mother was innocent. She had gone through a horrible childhood, which explained her moods. No one who had a troubled childhood was ever at peace. I had learned that from books. Even though most of what I read was made up, there was a lot of truth in it. I knew that as well as I knew the mole next to my right eye.

The sound stopped. I listened some more. Heard nothing. I looked at the kitchen door again.

No. Trust Mother.

She told you she rescued Clarabelle from Utopia.

So?

She’s lying, obviously.

Maybe she made a mistake.

I turned away from the kitchen door, picked up my sandwich and went upstairs. At my little white desk, I ate ravenously, unable to stop picturing the black-and-white photograph of the three-year-old missing girl.

I would have been three years old in 1966.

The missing girl was called Polly Dalton.

The blue dress had the name Polly Dalton sewn into it.