The owner shuffled over to a dryer part of the bed. Looked at the wall. It was plastered from floor to ceiling with photographs. The owner reached for the diary under the bed. Knew exactly where it was. This was the favourite bit. The owner knew the words by heart, had memorised them with religious devotion. The diary had been more than just a revelation: it had changed everything. A key, one that had unlocked a secret world. The diary, the key, was the owner’s personal Torah and this section was the most sacred: it described the moment of escape from evil.

The Exodus.

He removes his finger and, although it is a relief, she knows that the pain won’t subside until the morning. She hadn’t dressed up today: he was in too much of a hurry. That had been both good and bad.

‘There,’ he says, as if everything is normal and she had enjoyed it. The girl doesn’t cry. He doesn’t like it when she cries.

It is light today, and the television had been left on. She turns her head, bites her lip. It is a news programme – a man talking to the screen and words she couldn’t understand passing underneath him. The sound is off. While he had finished, the girl had thought of the man from the television.

He leaves in a hurry, mutters something about being late. He is careless, knocking into a table and cursing under his breath. He is swaying like he does sometimes. And that smell. Always it was worse when he came with that smell; it reminds her just a little of the sickly, arresting smell of the woman’s perfume.

The door closes behind him, the latch clicks and she waits for the bolt to shoot home, sealing her into the airless basement. The girl doesn’t mind the bolt. Sometimes she can just about imagine a world where she can close her eyes and move the bolt just by thinking about it, like the film she had seen with the green man who gets his words mixed up. Another world she isn’t sure actually exists.

So, she waits. And waits.

But the bolt doesn’t move.

At first, she thinks she must have missed the moment when he locked the door, but she can see through the little gap between the edge of the door and the frame. There is nothing but clean air filtering through.

The girl sits quietly and counts to ten. Then sings ‘The Alphabet Song’ in her head. Still nothing. The door is unlocked.

She can’t move. She is hurting inside and there is some blood, but it isn’t that. She is petrified. What if she gets into trouble because the door is unlocked? What if they think she is trying to escape?

Gingerly, she gets up and inspects the door. Maybe she can somehow lock herself in, then they’d never know.