I felt very confused but I didn’t show it cos I didn’t want her to think I was stupid so I just sat there while she talked and put more stuff on my face. When she’d finished she went over to the window and grabbed a mirror. ‘Are you ready to see the new you?’ she said, holding the mirror behind her back. I said yes and she pulled out the mirror and shoved it in front of my face.

The shock of what I saw nearly threw me off the bed. I couldn’t believe it. I had disappeared and in my place, staring back at me with those familiar dark, shapely eyebrows and black-lined eyes, was the dead mother in the desert. I didn’t say anything to Isobel, though she kept asking if I liked it. I said I did and then she started talking about her boyfriend again, but I wasn’t listening. All I could think of was what I had just seen in the mirror. After a few minutes I told Isobel that I had to go. She pulled a sad face and asked me if I wanted to stay for dinner. I couldn’t think what to say so I followed her down the stairs, letting her think I was going to join her in the kitchen, then I opened the front door and ran all the way home.

Thankfully he was still out when I got back so I got the chance to pull myself together. I can hear him now though. He’s making scran in the kitchen as I sit here writing this on the bed. I can smell the usual scent of animal carcasses boiling up. I’m used to that smell, it’s the smell of home, but it doesn’t comfort me any more. Not after today when I saw what a real home should be. I just wish I hadn’t run away from Isobel like that. She must think I’m mad. I have to go back and see her, say sorry for running off, tell her that I want to be her friend, want to spend time in her pretty bedroom with the books and the doll’s house and the smell of flowers in the air. I’ve had a taste of normal life now and it’s not the scary thing he’s always said it is. It’s real and comforting and solid, just like Isobel. I want to be a normal girl and do normal things, and I know I’ll only be that way if I stick with Isobel. She’s the only person I trust now, my only ally.

27

Lisa

Outside the window, a light snow begins to fall. It brushes against the glass like small feathers.

I read the headline again.

Below it is a mugshot of me, pale-faced and wild-haired, while next to that is a photo of Mark sitting at a table alongside two police officers, one male, one female. He looks broken. His eyes are swollen and red, his face unshaven, his hair matted and unkempt. It looks like he has given a press conference as underneath the photo, in quotation marks, is written: ‘Please, just bring my boy home.’