She scrunches up her eyes at the mirror. A cold draught blows. There is a flicker and she glances at the bottom corner of the mirror to look at the room behind her. She once heard older girls talking about a woman who would appear in a mirror at night if you said her name three times. She looks back at her face to check it is unchanged. The damp has worked its way into her hair and the black kohl has spread around her eyes. She undoes the plait circling her head and her hair springs out in a shock. She looks stranger now than when she was guising. She rubs her blotchy eyes while the rain batters the frosted window. The wind sounds like a dog whose owners have been away too long.

2

Sunlight has broken through the curtains. The back garden outside is made of three concrete levels, giant steps that are covered in flowerbeds and gravel and now overgrown with brambles. In the summer, Lauren hits a tennis ball against this side of the house with a warped racket. In winter, she keeps indoors and looks at the miles of forest that rise beyond the garden on the hillside.

Waking up, Lauren notices how messy her bedroom is, crumpled clothes and books with splayed pages scattered around the edge of her divan in the dingy light. The house has grown cold again. As she makes her way down the staircase her stomach chews at itself. The previous evening swims back to her and she pauses at the blue curtain to the back living room. She is hungry again and thirsty and there is no sound in the house except the drip from the leaking roof of the utility room.

She pulls back the edge of the curtain and slips through, letting the velvet slide from her fingers. The room is empty and smells of ash. There are no blankets on the sofa and no signs of a bed. The Himalayan salt lamp is illuminated. She doesn’t remember it ever being used, and goes to turn it off. She inspects the kitchen and the utility room, which lead off from the sofa-dining area, for some sign that the woman stayed over, but they are empty too. Bowls and plates are all stacked in the cupboard. She peers out of the back room’s sliding glass door, hoping to see her father outside chopping wood in the grey light, but he is not there. She does not know what time it is. There is a sharpness in the sky and the bushes look dark and slick from the rain.