After a while I fell into a weird dream where Rosie was taking photos of me in the Strangers’ Room. Her camera flashed against the warped glass of the mirror, but for some reason the pictures seemed to make her very upset.

“You’re not in them!” she kept saying, a wild look in her eye as she thrust the Polaroids at me. “I’m pointing the camera right at you, but you’re not there! You’re not there!”

I looked down and saw that she was right. The photos in my hands showed only one girl in the room, and that was Rosie. The photos didn’t capture me or my reflection in the mirror. It was only my sister there alone, looking more and more panic-stricken.

“This isn’t right!” she said. “Let me try again!”

She raised the camera, and the flash went off in my face, making my eyes smart, and I blinked.

“That’s enough,” I protested. “You’re blinding me with that thing!” 139

But she ignored me, and there was only the whir, click, flash until she finally lowered the camera and I saw that it wasn’t Rosie holding the camera at all – it was me. My head whirled with confusion as I realized that Rosie had vanished. When had that happened? How had we swapped places, and how had I missed it?

The camera in my hands was still going off, even though I wasn’t pressing any buttons. The sound of the shutter coming down seemed to get louder and louder until finally the Strangers’ Room melted away and I jerked upright in my sleeping bag in the bedroom I was sharing with Rosie. A dream. That was all it was. Just a dream. And yet … there was still a camera going off somewhere. I could hear it. The first click and flash disoriented me, but when it came a second time I realized it was coming from the corner of the room.

“Rosie, what the hell?” I said. “Cut it out.”

Taking photos of me while I was asleep was a whole new level of weird, even for my sister. But then the camera went off a third time and – in the brief moments that the flash lit up the room – I saw, quite clearly, that Rosie was lying sound asleep beside me.

140

Chapter Twelve

“Rosie!” My hand flew out, and I shook her roughly. “Wake up!”

“What?” I felt her sit up beside me. “What’s happening?”

“There’s someone in here with us.”

I thrashed around in my sleeping bag, desperate to get out so I could turn the light on, but the zip seemed to be stuck. Meanwhile the camera went off again and again.

Click, flash!

Click, flash!

Click, flash!

“Who’s there?” Rosie cried out, and I could hear the fear in her voice.