Alice turns from the scene unfolding to face forward, the leather seat squeaking under her thighs. The car feels too big. Room enough for seven.

A tear rolls down her cheek, and drips off her chin.

She’s never felt so alone.

Chapter 4

Early October 2019

Alice

The envelope feels rough against Alice’s fingers. The handwriting is small and spiky, and addressed to Ms Alice Hadley at Butterfly Cottage, where she’s been living since her father’s death eight months ago. The postmark is Suffolk.

The photograph inside is a black and white study of a Gothic building standing on a cliff edge, grand and imposing, with a steep, high roof rising to a point, and arched windows.

She turns the photo over, her hands shaking. ‘Flynn House,’ she whispers, reading the words on the back. She knows this house. Has seen it before in recurring nightmares. Her heart hammers against her chest, as she searches the envelope for who sent it. But there’s nothing – only the photo.

Her mind flits to ten years ago, when she made a sculpture of the haunting building that disturbed her dreams. Trying to make sense of it through her art.

‘Get rid of it,’ her father yelled when he saw it, his eyes wild. She’d never seen him so upset. He left her in tears that day. Slamming his office door behind him.

Later he apologised. Hugged her close. Told her he was having a bad day.

‘Why get so angry?’ she asked, wiping away her tears.

‘Leave it be, Alice. Please,’ was all he said. She never discovered why the house upset him so much.

She recalls putting the sculpture in the loft, unable to throw it away at the time, and dashes up the stairs, discarding the photo. Henry lumbers behind, wagging his tail, giving a gruff bark, thinking it’s a game.

But this is no game.

She pulls down the loft ladder, takes a deep breath, and climbs the metal rungs.

It’s not long before she’s lost in memories, pulling out her childhood books, Alice in Wonderland, Alice through the Looking Glass, pressing them against her nose, breathing them in, before flicking through the pages, imagining her father’s melodic tones as he read them to her at bedtime.

She grabs a box of dolls, recalls giving them tea parties, chatting with them, as though they were real – her friends.

Finally, tucked in the top of a plastic box full of exercise books, she finds Gothic House.

There’s no doubting the sculpture and the photograph are the same house – the house from her recurring dreams. But Alice had made the clay model long ago, years before seeing the photo. Had her dreams been based on memories? This doesn’t make sense.