What are you doing, Maggie? What if something happens?

I think of the sharp angles of his cheekbones; how I’d loved to look at him. Even the frown lines on his forehead and around his eyes that I had put there.

‘There’s a GP in Stornoway who’s agreed to see me, do all the tests,’ I say, staring up at the ceiling. ‘I’m not on the moon. I’m not on my own.’

Because I am scared something might happen without him. I’m always scared. But after what happened in the hospital with Mum, and after what happened inside Hither Green Crematorium after Mum, I feel different. The flying lines of that diamond rainbow kite did snatch me up and carry me away, and it was more frightening than I’d ever imagined it would be. And I can’t let that fear stay. I can’t live with it any more. It’s why I’m here. Because, of all the things Mum hated – and she’d hated a very long list of things – she’d hated cowards the most. And Ravi had always made it easy for me to be a coward.

I pull on the long chain around my neck, rub the warmed pink quartz pendant. Think of Mum kneeling by my bed. Pick a hand.

And me picking the right one because I never guessed wrong.

The box had been pink. The bow, white. The chain inside so long, its silver links caught the light as I pulled and pulled it out. Found the quartz pendant at its end.

You’ve been carrying that thing about for months. It’s a miracle you haven’t lost it already.

You said it was just an ugly stone.

The light in her eyes as she shrugged, cupped my face in her hands. It’s your ugly stone.

And then suddenly the memory fades. Mum is lying in another bed. Her smile is gone. The light is gone. The room is in darkness, except for a thread of silver stretching thin across the floor between us. I can hear scratching taps and a low whistling breath, too close. A man’s face looms suddenly out of all that darkness, his smile lopsided, lips hidden under a Dick Strawbridge moustache. He touches me with cool fleshy palms, and I flinch as Mum rears up from the bed to throw her bony arms around my neck. I can feel her heartbeat fluttering against the thunder of my own. The wide dark of her open mouth, the black beads of her eyes.

Trust nobody. They all lie. You know it’s true. You know. Please, Maggie. Please. And then that awful serene smile I always hated more – so much more – than her pain.

There are people behind me. Breathing, waiting. Watching. Expectant horror muttered in low rising whispers that prickle my skin, make its hairs stand on end.

And then I’m outside, in yet another place, another time. The silver Lexus comes out of nowhere, ripping Mum’s hands out of mine, yanking me up into the air. A silver-black grille. A windscreen and a face, its mouth a perfect round O. A cliff face of rock and grass, the wind roaring like the sea. And then I’m dropped like a stone, like a diamond kite without any wind.