Sara watched through the window as Tony’s van exited onto the lane. She paused there for a moment, looking at the empty space left behind. Then she went through the back hall to the extension. The walls were freshly plastered, windows and patio doors glazed, but the floor was bare concrete. Materials and tools lay scattered about, ready for the underfloor heating to be installed and covered with tiles that were being shipped from Italy. Sara picked her way through lengths of piping, bags of some kind of cement, careful of her footing. The ground floor was open plan, an expansive reception room with a central open fireplace that would create a border between the living and dining areas, with a staircase at the far end. Above, a gallery landing provided access to what would be the master and two spare bedrooms. Through the patio doors, she could see the yard, its stretch of stony earth waiting to be landscaped.

Sara made her way to the centre of what would some day be the dining area and looked down at the concrete. Smooth and fresh, it had been laid just days before they arrived. And what lay beneath? What had they found here? Whatever it was, had they left it in place or taken it away? She imagined packed earth and stone, and children, trapped there, looking up, reaching for the light.

I know how they feel, she thought.

Her life, her marriage, bound so tight around her that she couldn’t move. She thought of Amanda, and the warning she had given, and Sara wished for that time back, so that she could listen. What if instead of taking those pills, she had simply walked through the door, called Amanda, and asked for shelter? Where would she be now?

Not here, not hundreds of miles from the people she had once called friends. A clean break, Damien had said, a new start. Away from all the pressures of her job and the malevolent influence of Amanda and the others. I want to keep you safe, he’d said on her first night home from the hospital, his chest against her back, his lips on her neck. His words so soft, soothing the burn of shame she felt for taking those pills. But she understood what he really wanted now. The distance he’d placed between her and everyone she had once cared for, and those who had cared for her.

A wash of loneliness came in, the crushing weight of it almost pushing her to the floor. She turned away from it, blocked it out. It would do her no good. Isolation was his weapon and she would not use it against herself.

Outside, the light dimmed, heavy raindrops smacking the glass. Sara shivered as the temperature dropped, and she no longer wanted to be in this room. She returned through the back hall and stepped one foot into the kitchen, freezing in the shadow of the doorway.