Lizzie spun around. There was no sign of a harp, no sign of any instrument other than the piano. The cadence came again, higher, wistful, a fall of notes that sounded like a sigh. She moved towards the sound and then she saw it, on a little shelf to the right of the door, a crystal ball held in the cupped palms of a stone angel.

The crystal swirled with a milky white mist.

Touch me.

Lizzie stopped when her hand was about an inch from the crystal surface.

No. The urge was strong but she knew what would happen if she did. Ever since she had been a small child, she had had an uncanny knack of being able to read objects. It was something she had grown up with so at first it had seemed natural; it was only when she had first mentioned it to Kat, who had looked at her as though she was a changeling, that she realised not everyone had the gift. “It’s just your imagination running away with you,” Kat had said, folding her in her embrace and stroking her hair, trying to soothe and normalise her, to reassure herself as much as Lizzie. “You see things because you want to see them, sweetie. It doesn’t mean anything...”

Lizzie had never mentioned it to her again after that but she had known Kat was wrong. Later, when she looked it up, she saw it was called psychometry. She used it carefully, secretly, to connect with her past and the mother she had lost as a child. The rest of the time she tried not to touch anything much at all if it was likely to give her a vision. She really didn’t want to know.

The crystal was calling to her. She rubbed her palms down her dress to stop herself reaching out to obey the unspoken whisper.

“What did you see?”

Lizzie jumped. A boy was standing on the bottom step of the vast staircase, dwarfed by its height and breadth. He was staring at her. It was disconcerting; she hadn’t known anyone was there.

“Nothing,” she said. “I didn’t touch it.” She sounded defensive, which was ridiculous. She’d done nothing wrong and he was only a child. Deliberately she relaxed her face into the smile she used for the public.

“Hi, I’m Lizzie.”

The boy looked at her as though he was trying to make some sort of private decision about her. It was an odd expression for such a young child; wary, thoughtful with a flash of calculation. It hinted, Lizzie thought, at a rather terrifying intelligence.

“I’m Johnny.” He came forward and stuck out a hand very formally. Lizzie shook it.

“You’re Amelia’s brother. I saw you at the wedding.” She recognised him now from the church, traipsing in behind the flower girls in Amelia’s wake, looking as though he’d rather be somewhere else. Amelia’s family had turned out in force for the wedding. They were all very close, a situation which Lizzie secretly envied.