It was Carolyn, standing on the doorstep, smiling politely. ‘Hi,’ she said, she was holding a box of matches and a bundle of plain white candles. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘but our power went off briefly, and it occurred to me . . .’ Her voice drifted away, her gaze dropping to the knife in Nell’s hand. ‘Is everything all right?’ she asked.

‘Actually,’ Nell said, near breathless with relief, ‘I’m not sure it is.’

Evie looked around the kitchen, smiling nervously at Gina, her glance skittering off Kym and onto the papers scattered over the table. She was clutching a crumpled linen tote bag and was out of breath. ‘I needed to – talk to you. I think.’ She gave every impression that she might turn tail and run.

‘OK.’ Kym’s expression was wary, she looked at her grand-mother. ‘It’s sort of – private,’ she said.

Gina looked from one girl to the other. ‘You know what?’ she said, ‘I’m just going to – go upstairs and finish getting ready, and I’ll leave you two to have a chat.’ She went to the door. ‘I will be wanting some answers before I leave, though, so you might want to sort this homework out.’ She looked at Kym. ‘Whatever it might be.’ She smiled sadly at Evie. ‘It’s nice to see you, pet.’

They stood facing each other, the table between them, neither sure where to start.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Kym, ‘about Tyler. About what he said. About the house.’

‘Is it true?’ Evie asked.

Kym glanced at the doorway as if she was worried that Gina might hear. ‘Yeah. I – thought you knew.’

‘No, you didn’t.’

‘No. No, I didn’t. Sorry.’ Kym didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands, she settled for folding her arms.

‘And you weren’t going to tell me?’

‘Of course I was – I think I was—’

There was a pause.

‘Sorry,’ said Kym again.

‘When? I mean – I looked but I couldn’t – when did they own the house?’

‘It was back when my grandad was working for them, my dad too’ – she took a breath, looked Evie in the eye – ‘he was working for them when he died.’

Evie nodded as if the answer were a confirmation, more than anything else. ‘Right,’ she said, ‘of course. Of course he was.’

‘But that’s not – I wasn’t, like, using you.’

The silence stretched between them, filling the room.

‘Tell me again about the witch marks,’ said Evie eventually, ‘about why they put them in houses.’

Kym shook her head, surprised by this sudden change of subject. ‘No one really knows, do they? For luck.’

‘Protection,’ said Evie, ‘yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And why did they build a wall around the abbey, do you think?’

‘Invaders,’ said Kym, ‘the Vikings and all that.’

‘They came later,’ said Evie, ‘and sometimes a wall is, like, significant?’

‘A boundary.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Evie. Are you – OK?’