My chance was stolen as Mother’s red car grumbled up the dirt road. Unable to believe her timing, I dashed around the bottom of the bed, out of the room. Closing and locking the door behind me, I moved to the edge of the banister at the top of the stairs. I knelt down and peered around the corner, giving myself a view of the front door. My heart raced as I realized this could be my chance – mine and Emma’s chance – to escape. The man had looked bigger than Mother, stronger too. If he was a good, kind person, surely he would help us.

The ‘if’ word hovered over me like some invisible beast; what if he was even worse than her? What if she knew him? What if they were partners? I shook my head, unable to believe I could have been so clueless as to not pick up on her having some kind of evil friend in all of this. I would have seen or noticed something.

I heard voices – hers and his. It was hard to hear their words and I wanted to know – I needed to know. I pushed myself up and ran down the stairs then darted past the front door into the living room where I hid just inside the doorway by the corner wall. I pressed my ear to the cool, hard outer wall and strained to hear their words, but they had stopped talking.

I could not remember a single time Mother had mentioned a man other than her grandfather, who she had only so recently spoken to me about. Once, some years back, I had asked her who my father was. Somewhere deep down, even at six or seven years old, I had known this was forbidden territory, but my inner cat had got the better of me. She had shouted at me for asking such a question then given me the silent treatment for the next seven days. Those seven days had seemed an eternity to me. I had begged her to talk to me, tried to hug her, brought her glasses of water, made her lunch, but nothing worked.

I frowned and wondered if she had treated me like that because she enjoyed feeling powerful. Had she enjoyed tormenting me? If I did not get Emma out of the cottage, perhaps Mother would do the same to her – maybe worse, if Emma was not as obedient as me. As weak and pathetic and gullible as me.

If she is not as weak as me, she’ll probably suffer more.

I was weak. For ten years, I had been weak. I had behaved like some kind of toy puppet. Like a stupid, mindless doll – exactly what she wanted.

Not any more.

My hands clenched at my sides and I set my jaw, determined to take advantage of this perfect chance.