She was chopping onions when she heard it: one-two, one-two.

Maude, she told herself, Maude coming down at last to complain that she was thirsty and that she had run out of things to read.

Maude, favouring her uninjured foot as she planted it carefully on each tread, gripping the banister tightly, one-two, one-two, like a toddler learning to manage the stairs.

Like a heartbeat.

The poor little boy, named Frederick for his father.

The knife slipped and she nicked herself. Swearing softly, she turned on the cold tap and let it run over the wound until her finger was numb. She wouldn’t think about the doctor and his wife, what had happened to their family. Chris was coming back tomorrow, she would concentrate on that. She switched the radio on, turned the volume up, and went back to the chopping board.

*

There was a glass of water on the trunk. Maude couldn’t think where it had come from. She must have fetched it herself, but she couldn’t remember. It felt heavy and the water was warm, but she drank it anyway. Exhausted, she lay down. Her mind wandered as she gazed up at the ceiling, at the marks Kym had said would keep her safe. Marian marks had something to do with the Virgin Mary, so that was probably a good thing.

They never went to church, only for Christmas and weddings.

The pins were a good thing too, the nearest she could get to iron – witches didn’t like iron, apparently; and it wasn’t that she believed in all this stuff, it was more that it was fun to believe in it, to strike a bargain, to make things happen. She wished Carolyn hadn’t cleared everything away.

*

Kym was working at her gran’s kitchen table, she had spread out the photocopies she’d made at the Lit and Phil. Evie had dated them and made the odd note, and looking at the neat handwriting as she shifted them around into chronological order, Kym felt horribly ashamed of herself all over again.

‘What’s all this, then?’ Gina said. She was wearing a dress, a bright floral print that had seen better days, and her favourite necklace. She was fussing with her hair, which she’d pinned up into an untidy bun.

‘Revision. You look nice,’ said Kym.

‘Thank you, pet. Are you sure you’ll be all right on your own?’ It was the Lit and Phil’s annual get-together, a pub meal and drinks afterwards. Gina turned one of the photocopies around to get a better look at it.

‘History, is it?’

‘Yeah.’ Kym began to stack the papers.

Gina looked at her thoughtfully. ‘I don’t have to go out, you know.’

‘Don’t be daft.’

*