He took the pan off the heat, hurried down the stairs and was met by a piece of red cloth blocking his path. In a way, he was surprised, though he should have known this is where she’d be. He was not, however, relieved.

On the other side of the red sheet, a handful of flickering candles cast twisting shadows of Matilda and her friend Esmaralda. When he took a step closer, he could see Matilda through a small gap in the improvised curtain, sitting across from Esmaralda with her back towards him.

She blocked most of his view, but it wasn’t difficult to guess that they were sitting on either side of the Ouija board with their fingers on the pointer that was supposed to move across the row of letters to spell out words.

‘I think she’s ready,’ Esmaralda said.

‘Okay, let’s do it,’ Matilda said, clearing her throat. ‘Greta,’ she continued, now in a solemn voice that sounded several years older than her normal one. ‘Exactly a month and a day ago, you claimed a member of my family was going to pass away. I came very close but survived. Now I need to know if you meant me and something went wrong or if it was my brother or one of my parents.’

The silence after she stopped speaking was so thick with the girls’ expectations it was almost tangible. Or was it him? Did he actually believe the pointer would start moving and give them an answer? Was that why he didn’t just rip down the curtain and ask them to stop that nonsense? He, who didn’t believe in ghosts, spirits or whatever they were supposed to be.

‘Why isn’t she answering?’ Matilda said, sounding like herself again.

‘Maybe she doesn’t want to?’

‘What do you mean, doesn’t want to? She can’t just give us half the story and then clam up.’

‘Of course she can. That’s the whole point. They can do whatever they want. That’s why you can never provoke them.’

‘Esma, what are you doing? You can’t take your hand away.’

‘Are you really sure you want to do this?’

‘Yes, I am. We’ve talked about this. You can’t chicken out now.’

Esmaralda tilted her head; he caught a quick glimpse of her behind Matilda. ‘Fine, one more try. But just one. Then I have to go home. Greta, are you in here with us?’

Fabian leaned forward but could only see a small section of the Ouija board.

‘Look, at least she’s still here,’ Matilda said.

‘Greta, do you feel like answering Matilda’s question? If not, you can just say no.’

‘Is someone in my family still going to die?’