Rosie reluctantly put the camera to one side. I was a bit surprised she didn’t seem more pleased by whatever it was she thought she’d captured on screen. It was as if it had suddenly stopped being a game to her and had become something real instead.

The next morning she kept on about the photos, poring over the footage on her camera and thrusting it into my face until I got sick of her pointing out tiny shadows and smudges on the screen, convinced there was something there.

“Maybe we should ask that guga hunter, Will, about it?” Rosie finally suggested. “He might be able to tell us more about the Strangers’ Room?”

I shook my head. I still hadn’t said anything to 144Rosie about Will’s sister dying, and I didn’t want Will to mention it either. “I think you should just do what Dad asked and stay away from him,” I said. “He’s unfriendly and rude.”

Rosie didn’t say anything more about it, and I hoped that was an end to the conversation. The storm had finally blown over and it was such a relief to see some blue sky and sunshine again. After two days of being cooped up inside it, I’d grown sick of the lighthouse, so I was happy to spend a bit of time outside in the keeper’s garden with Charlie, even when we were just poking around in the dirt, looking for snails. He still refused to admit that he’d been the one in our bedroom with the camera, but I guessed he just didn’t want to get into trouble over it. I thought about mentioning it to Dad, but then I’d risk him finding out about the trapdoor, and besides, it seemed mean to tell tales on Charlie. Also, after two days of being locked up together, I just wanted to get away from Dad and Kate for a bit too.

When I went upstairs to fetch Rosie for lunch a couple of hours later, she wasn’t there. I knew she 145was probably back in the Strangers’ Room, and sure enough when I climbed the spiral staircase, I found her. Or rather I found her rushing from the room so quickly that she almost ran straight into me.

“Hey, watch it!” I exclaimed. “You almost sent us both down the stairs.” Then I saw her ashen face and said, “What’s the matter?”

She swallowed hard, cast a wary look back into the room and said, “There’s… I think there’s something wrong with the mirror in there.”

I looked over her shoulder at the old mirror on the wall. “You mean that it’s concave?” I said. “Or covered in rust? Either way, it’s quite hard to see anything clearly in it.”