Lauren notices the oil painting of a gun dog with a pheasant in its jaws, half in shadow on the wall. She has never really paid attention to it before. There is blood soaking its mouth. Below, on the mantelpiece, are silver-framed photographs and a candelabra holding unlit used candles that have sunk into themselves.

‘When do you use that?’ she asks.

‘Oh. We can now.’ Ann-Marie takes a large box of matches from behind a photo frame and strikes a flame. Lauren collects empty matchboxes. She has decorated a couple at home with silver glitter and pictures cut from newspapers. Inside she keeps things that are small and precious to her – a tiny shell, a palette of eyeshadow from her mother’s vanity case, a foreign coin. Sometimes she will use them for spells, too, and bury them in the ground. Lauren watches the match glow blue, orange and yellow. She watches the flame catch the burnt, sunken wick of the first candle. Ann-Marie uses the same match to light the next candle and the next, her back straight, concentrating.

‘Did you know that candles have magic powers?’ says Lauren.

‘Er … no, I didn’t.’

‘Well, they do. Blue means protection. Yellow means happy. Red means love.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘We have a book at home.’ Lauren doesn’t ever mention the secret book, but she talks about others. She picks at a corner of the bench where the red leather has cracked and yellow padding spills through. ‘It’s one of my favourite books. Candle Power: The Inspiring – something – Ritual and Magic.’

‘What do white candles mean?’ Ann-Marie says.

‘I can’t remember.’

‘Let’s look it up.’ Ann-Marie begins tapping on her phone. ‘White is … “Psychic development. Purity. Truth.” That sounds good, doesn’t it?’

‘Yeah. What does the first one mean?’

‘I don’t know. Look. There’s a poem you’re meant to say when you light the candle.

“Flickering candle,

Enchanted fire,

Grant me what

I so desire.”

They watch the three small flames move. ‘One two three …’ Lauren holds her breath. Ann-Marie points to her phone screen and they say the last part together: ‘… So shall it be.’

The lamps and candles flicker and the room turns black. Lauren grabs Ann-Marie’s hand and they try to see each other in the dying flames.

‘That can happen,’ says Ann-Marie, her voice a little shaky. The bulb has blown. The room feels very cold and damper now, Lauren notices, as though they are underground.

Back downstairs in the bright kitchen, the Irish wolfhounds rise from their ancient baskets and sniff around the girls’ feet. Lauren does not want to pet them with her clean hands. The dogs look up at her, and one tries to rise up on its hind legs, its nose almost touching hers.

‘Down, Rowland!’ says Ann-Marie.