‘I lost it. And I think she found it. She took it,’ says Lauren.

‘I didn’t,’ says Ann-Marie.

‘No, I meant the other woman. My mum. Christine.’

A dog jumps up at the window, its paws on the glass, a hairy, sharp-toothed grin.

Ann-Marie starts and sinks her head in her hands. ‘If I didn’t. This. Wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t. Be here.’ She looks at Lauren and hugs her and cries. ‘Thank you.’

Niall can see the figures of Angela, Malcolm and a teenage boy at the top of the drive. At first, he thinks it must be Fraser, home from university, but as they walk closer he sees he has blond hair under his hat and looks completely different.

Lauren looks out of the window too, then carries on, her hand on Ann-Marie’s shoulder. ‘I lost it. But I think she took it from me and gave it to you. You needed it. You can keep it. What happened?’

‘It’s not my blood,’ she says.

25

Some nights Lauren wakes as Oren, her new old name, and is called to the window by a silent language. She does not know when these nights will announce themselves but knows they are connected to the shape of the moon and the movements of the planets. She is learning the constellations she sees from her window and carving animals into wood.

When the blue-moon nights arrive, Lauren smells summer flowers. She might see a cast of hawks or a scattering of herons. A knot of toads or a richesse of pine martens. One night there is a destruction of wildcats. And when she sees them from her window she knows she goes out into the garden, because the next morning the soles of her feet are muddy. Yet she only remembers Christine, her mother, in her dreams and in the stories her father tells, now he is ready to talk. He tells her he wants to talk as much as he can, to her and other people, like Kirsty. He needs to practise for Sandy’s trial. With Diane’s help the police found him, stabbed in the face with a pocketknife. They had to treat Ann-Marie at a different facility to him, for her dehydration and hypothermia. There was a news story about it and one when Ann-Marie recovered, and was being taught at home by a tutor. The story showed a photo of her grinning with Diane, who sometimes joins her to study. The paper said Sandy will never get his sight back. His eyes are gone.