Matty got her to sit up. ‘I’m going to carry you, OK?’ An arm underneath her knees, the other manoeuvring around her back. ‘Put your arm around me here.’

‘Mermaid,’ she said.

She was far heavier out of the water and was beginning to shiver violently.

‘Sheanna, what number is it? Your house?’ Sheanna was snivelling, a rivulet of bile trickling from one corner of her mouth. ‘What’s your house number? It’s this road, yeah? Do you hear me?’ Mouth, close to her ear. Rubbing her back, fast and hard.

Sheanna’s words were indistinct.

‘Thirty-seven?’

‘Fifty-seven,’ she said, in a distant, broken voice. A voice still threaded with water. ‘Up there. I’m really dizzy.’

The gravel bit at Matty’s bare feet, doubly hard with the weight. Twice they had to stop, Sheanna set down on the road, shaking. She wouldn’t open her eyes.

Matty knelt down, blew on both palms and rubbed the girl’s cheeks. ‘We’ll find your dad, and your mum.’

Sheanna shook her head, a tight hummed no.

‘We’re almost there. Sixty-one, look.’ Matty hefted her up again, got her bottom under both hands, Sheanna’s arms slung over both shoulders. She rested her head right in the well of Matty’s neck. ‘Just as well you don’t live at five hundred and fifty-seven, isn’t it?’

She didn’t reply. Her cold nose against Matty’s skin. Shivering like a rabbit.

The sloped driveway curved round to a large, newly built house and a porch in mismatched stone.

‘Look. We’re here.’

The door was unlocked. A porch, and another door, also open. The smell of a peat fire.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello?’ A man’s voice. ‘Can I help you?’ He appeared, a tea towel in his hands. ‘Sheanna—’ His voice immediately changed to one of direct concern, rushing over as Matty set her down on the carpet. Crouching. ‘Jesus. What’s happened?’ He looked up.

‘Daddy,’ Sheanna said, exhausted and mouse-like, leaning against his legs.

Matty looked at him, and he looked back. A mirror-image, their two faces locking. Mouths opening.

A mirror-image.

Joe.

Chapter 13

Words were impossible.

He was a faded, expanded version of Joe, coming from the future and the past at once. Paler, greyer. A beard. Glasses. But it couldn’t be anyone else.

They were both crouched over Sheanna, only inches apart. Staring at each other.

‘Matty?’ he said, the word slow, exploratory. As if he’d never said it before.

Matty stood quickly, went dizzy. Put a hand out against the wall and backed towards the door.

‘It’s …’ he said. His hand cradling Sheanna’s head. ‘Is it you?’ A ghost-voice.

Head-shake. Over and over. Doorframe digging in.

‘Scout,’ said Sheanna, with a decisive, tired sweetness, as if reading herself the last words of a bedtime story.

Joe looked down at her. Back up. His lips hadn’t shut once.