Rowan Cottage was empty. Before she could second guess herself, Nell ran down the steps and knocked at the door of Spinnaker Cottage. After a moment or two, it opened. ‘Hi.’

Carolyn looked puzzled, then she pulled the door further back. ‘Oh. Hello. Sorry, I was . . . How are you? How’s Maude?’

‘She’s fine. She’s – resting up.’

‘Come in, come in—’

‘No. I – I realise this is a huge cheek on my part. But I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind just keeping an eye on her, for an hour or so. You wouldn’t have to actually do anything. Just – be in the house with her. If you have the time?’

‘Oh. Of course, yes, absolutely.’

‘I’m so sorry to bother you, you’ve already been so kind.’

‘It’s no bother.’

Nell felt a flicker of guilt. She should make a point of being nicer about Carolyn in the future.

‘I’ll just get my bag and I’ll be right with you.’ Carolyn disappeared back into the house.

‘That’s brilliant, thank you so much.’ Nell pulled Maude’s phone out of her pocket, and scrolled through the contacts, looking for Gina’s number.

*

Once her head stopped swimming, Maude risked standing and walked to the ladder. She gripped the sides so tightly as she climbed down it made her hands ache.

She should have brought the glass with her, but she managed to drink from the tap. She gulped the water down as best she could, splashing it all down her front and making herself breathless in the process. Standing up, she felt dizzy, and she couldn’t tell if the footsteps had come back or if it was the thudding of the pulse in her throat that sounded so loud, so close.

One-two.

One-two.

The girl in the mirror looked ill, she thought, too pale and the rash on her arms was spreading over her face and neck. Poor thing.

‘Hello?’

She thought it was Nell calling out, she was cross with Nell, and she thought she might not bother answering – give her what her mum liked to call the silent treatment – but she was hungry.

‘Maude?’

Maude went out onto the landing and it was like everything suddenly came into focus, and she realised that the woman standing at the bottom of the stairs wasn’t Nell at all.

‘Hi,’ said Carolyn, ‘Nell had to go out. She asked me to keep an eye on you.’

I’m not a baby. That was what she meant to say. And she was cross with Nell, for what she’d done with her dad, for leaving her now. ‘I don’t feel well,’ said Maude, and she began to cry.

*

Carolyn was nice, kind; like when she’d driven them to the hospital.