Patricia drew a finger to her lips. ‘A voice,’ she whispered as she lowered onto her knees.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked, shrinking back, but the woman had fallen into one of her trances.

‘Everyone, back,’ she said, her head twisting around the room as if she had heard someone else speaking. ‘He’s doing this alone.’

Ben was starting to worry where his parents had gotten to. He thought to call out to them. But Patricia seized him by the shoulders and drew him towards her, exorcising him of any free will. It became hard to breathe as his aunt’s mustiness was more potent up close.

‘On your knees, like this,’ she snapped as she set him in front of her.

Ben didn’t argue. He clenched his eyes shut as tight as he could and tried not to move.

‘What are you waiting for?’ he heard Patricia whisper, but he could tell from her voice that she was looking elsewhere. ‘Kill him?’ she asked. ‘Kill who? Who are you?’

Patricia’s hands clamped around Ben’s neck. His eyes opened. The tears erupted as though they were being wrung out of him like a sodden cloth. This was worse than that time with the sharks. He tried to scream but his voice couldn’t rise between her fingers. He was absolutely terrified, certain in that second that his aunt meant to strangle him. But she wasn’t even looking at Ben. Patricia was staring over his shoulder, her face frozen in an expression so terrorised as to rival his own. She was shaking her head, utterly revulsed by whatever vision her so-called gift had conjured behind him.

‘What have you done?’ she shrieked, louder than Ben had ever heard her speak. ‘Her face. Oh my God! What did you do to her, you devils?’

Ben hadn’t heard his father’s approach, so loud were his aunt’s screams. The man was suddenly between them, prying Patricia’s hands from his weeping son’s neck. That was the first and only time Ben had ever seen his father angry, and that was his last memory of his Aunt Patricia. His mother helped him up to his room, where he was put to bed. There were voices downstairs for a while. His father’s, mostly. And then the front door slammed and the smell of sage was banished from the house forever.