I was about to go to my bedroom, but then I paused and said, “Charlie? I just want to ask one more time, and then I promise I won’t again. Do you remember Rosie?” I had some faint hope that he might answer differently if it was just the two of us. “It’s OK to say if you do,” I went on. “You won’t be in trouble, I promise.”

But Charlie shook his head once again. “I have one sister,” he said. “Just one.” He gave me a worried look. “Perhaps the lighthouse is sending you mad?”

I sighed. I didn’t think I’d ever been so exhausted in my life. “Maybe.”

“Jess?”

“Yes?”

“What does it feel like to be mad?”

“I don’t know, Charlie. Not very nice, I suppose.”

“Would you know if you were mad?”

“I don’t know that either. But probably not.”

I left him to it and returned to my own bedroom. It felt so wrong crawling into my sleeping bag and lying down alone, without Rosie snoring softly beside me, but I eventually fell into a restless sleep with tears on my cheeks.

188

Chapter Sixteen

When I woke up a few hours later, I saw the spot where my sister ought to have been, and the agony of the night before came flooding back. It was even harder to believe everything that had happened when I opened the shutters and filled the room with sunlight. Surely I hadn’t really seen ghostly people in the fog? And surely I’d find Rosie taking photos outside? Yet the bedroom was still empty of her things, and when I grabbed my phone there wasn’t a single photograph of her on there. It was like she’d just been wiped from existence.

I quickly dressed and went downstairs. Dad and Kate were sitting at the kitchen table and fell silent the moment I walked in. There was an awkward moment before Dad pointed at a chair and said, 189“Take a seat, Jess. We need to talk about what happened last night.”

Reluctantly I sat down and listened as Dad delivered a lecture about personal responsibility, and acting my age, blah-blah-blah. I gathered that he’d cancelled the boat, but he wanted my assurance that I wouldn’t have any more meltdowns. Of course, I had no choice but to promise. Whatever it took to remain on the island and find Rosie.

“Let’s all just try to start over,” Kate said, leaning across the table towards me. “Jess, tell us how we can help make this easier for you.”

“I’d like more time to myself,” I said at once. “I feel crowded when we’re together too much.”

I steeled myself against the look of hurt that flashed across Dad’s face.

“But isn’t that why you’re here?” he asked. “So we can spend time together?”

I shrugged. “I want some time to myself too,” I said.