Ross stares at me, willing me to explain, but what can I say? Where would I begin?

“Lizzie was my little sister’s best friend,” Catherine says, lowering herself into the Ikea chair in the corner of the room, the one I use when Ross and I both need to sit in front of the Mac at the same time.

Ross raises his eyebrows as if to say, “Is that it?”

“Alice died,” I say. There, the words are out. But now my tongue has stuck to the roof of my mouth. My knees begin to tremble.

Ross motions for me to sit down, nods at the leather chair, but I stay where I am, my back pressed to the unit, refusing to meet her eyes.

“Lizzie was with her when it happened,” she says. I hold my breath as she looks down and twists a ring on her finger. “Alice was killed by a train. It was an accident,” she says. “A tragic accident.”

My chest heaves and air rushes into my lungs, almost choking me with its force. I try to compose the muscles in my face, try to keep them soft and light, but they tighten and contract. My jaw clamps tight like a vise. It’s a wonder my teeth don’t shatter in my gums.

Ross is staring at me, mouth open, his forehead creased in a frown. I watch his face as he takes it all in, absorbs the shock of it. He glances anxiously into the hallway and I know he’s torn. Torn between staying here to find out what the hell is going on and returning to his guests—our guests—to check they’re okay.

I think I see the exact moment when he makes a decision. “I’m going to leave the two of you to talk,” he says. There’s a reluctance in his tone, but still he moves toward the door. My eyes scream at him to stay. I can’t be on my own with her. Why can’t he see that? What’s wrong with him? But he’s already gone.

Every muscle in my body tenses as I wait for this apparition in front of me to dissolve and for the real Catherine Dawson to appear. The Catherine Dawson who stood outside my bedroom window in the middle of the night. And not just once either. She threw a stone only that first time, but I always knew when she was there, could feel her toxic aura radiating through the curtains. I told Mum and Dad in the end and she stopped shortly after. But the damage was already done. Whatever it was she’d whispered to Melissa and the others at Alice’s funeral was enough to start the rumors when I went back to school.