There was more cold hard logic in Liz than people guessed – one reason the family had far less prison time between them than most would say they deserved – but that hadn’t been all that’d kept them free and healthy over the years. There was another part of her, an older, darker voice. It’d warned her away from the undercover copper from Nottingham, and the dog-fight the police had raided. She’d learned to heed it for the best and simplest reason; whenever it spoke, it was right.

Soon as Cheetham’d told her how Tony’d died, that old dark voice had told Liz Harper that all Nan’s tales were true. She couldn’t, mustn’t think of Tony now. She’d the rest of her family to worry about. Easy to start howling and sobbing, or take to her bed and not come down for a week, but there wasn’t time for that, for her or anyone else.

She’d told the old voice it was talking shite, and cold hard logic had agreed. Tony had got drunk. Maybe slipped and knocked his head, dizzied himself and wandered, off-course and dazed, till the cold got to him and down he went. Stupid, tragic, a senseless fucking death for her little boy, but it made sense at least. Explained it without having to believe in Nan’s fairy tales.

But then Cheetham had shown her the mark, and –

Something banged on the front door. Liz tied a bandolier around her waist, trying and failing not to think of Tony again, and picked up her shotgun.

Always starts with one, Nan had told her. Some poor sod, out after dark in the dead of winter – it’s always then, when They wake up. They go out hunting. Never touch whoever it is – just chase them down and watch them freeze. Some folk read tea-leaves – or remember that old ghost story, about drawing the sorts? Well, They do the same thing by watching how you die of the cold.

Liz remembered the sorts: you opened a Bible at random, put your finger down the same way, then read the line you’d found to discover what you had to do, or what was going to happen.

Bible. Yes – the Bible, that was what Liz needed now.

But there was someone at the door, and that needed seeing to first. She slotted two cartridges into the twelve-bore and snapped the barrels shut.

If the death goes well – for Them, I mean, They leave their sign, Nan had told her. They gather and meet, to talk about what They’ve seen. About the portents, to see whether it’s time yet. And if They decide it is – there’ll be two nights, just two more nights – and then on the third, the Dance.

Liz remembered that, and the old rhyme Nan had taught her: Board your window, keep on your light, when the Tatterskin walks at night.