And then the thundering hooves of the centaurs approached, and the shadows turned at the noise, and we scrambled back, hidden from the fae beneath Nan’s glamour. Our breath steamed as we tripped on tangled roots, and the barren sticks of willow reached for our clothes, as roiling dark clouds withered through the trees. A great stag bellowed, rushing through the forest by our side, and when I looked at Nan, she was barely there at all.

‘Nan,’ I hissed, pulling at her hand, but my own went through hers. ‘Nan!’

‘Hush,’ she whispered, and her eyes were dark hollows. ‘Don’t let him hear you now, Stella. Come after me. Come, come, Stella – as fast as you can.’

She was like bright smoke herself though, her form twisted as we flew back through the forest, and while I got scraped and tripped, the branches snapping with every pace, nothing touched her at all.

‘Stop,’ I whimpered, stumbling as we got out on to the moorland that ran up to the orchard at the back of our house. ‘I don’t know . . . Who are you? What’s happening?’

‘Keep coming, Stella!’ she wailed, turning and clutching at me. Her fingers gripped my wrist, and they were cold and hard. ‘I’ll tell you – I’ll explain – but we must run. We must keep going until we get home!’

Home.

The word flashed through me. What was home, on the edge of this wilderness? What was home, with this Nan who grew thin as cloud, until I could see the stars through the outline of her body, as her hand gripped mine, and we flew over uneven ground to the silver wire of home, as we ran from my father’s hordes of fear and malice?

That was the night I discovered Nan was a ghost. I knew, after that, there was nothing for me there, in that forest. My father was only a memory, impossible to reach, and Nan had used everything she could to hide us from his shadows. That was why she’d got so thin, and she never really recovered from it. That was how the magic of that other world soured. It’s a terrifying, wild place where nothing is as it seems. Where I am not welcome. And it’s the real world – the warmth of the humanity I read about in my favourite books – that I need.

That was the night I started to dream of school.

Mrs Mandrake is late, and I cannot help but flit, watching for her. First from the windows, and then in the orchard, where I decide it’s finally time to pick up the fallen apples. Nan laughs at me when I collect the basket from the top of the washing machine, and Peg hops in, a tiny brown mouse huddling into the twist of willow. I grab a carrot and chop it small, and when Onion bustles up to me, I scatter the pieces across the grass.