My throat burned with the hundreds of questions I longed to ask, but the urgency in his voice was unmistakable and I could feel how tense and rigid 206he was in every limb. So I did as he said and closed my eyes.

Suddenly the door behind us flew open so hard that it banged against the wall and caused a shower of plaster to rain down from the ceiling. Every instinct in my body was screaming at me to turn and see who had just entered the room, but Will curled himself closer around me.

It clearly wasn’t a member of my family. This person was silent. All I could hear was the rasping sound of their breath. The floorboards creaked as they came closer and closer, until it sounded as if they must be just centimetres away. The breathing was horribly loud in the room, echoing round it like a wave inside a shell.

I could smell something rank and unwashed and even thought I felt a faint puff of warm breath against my elbow – as if the person behind us was on their knees. Will must have felt it too because he tensed even more. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to whirl round to face the thing behind us. It was only Will’s rigid body that kept me from doing so. I could feel how desperately he was urging me not to turn round, so I stayed where I was, but my eyelids 207trembled with the effort of keeping them closed, and I kept expecting to feel icy fingers dragging me backwards at any second.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the person began to move away. We heard their slow steps retreat across the room and then the bang of the door as they went out. I opened my eyes and would have spun round, but Will whispered, “Give it a moment.”

We stayed like that for another five minutes before Will finally glanced over his shoulder and said, “All right. It’s safe.”

My knees buckled and I sagged against the wall, relief and terror roiling around inside me. “What the hell is going on?” I said, turning to look at Will. “Who was that?”

He was still pale and I could see that the last few minutes had shaken him up too. “You really don’t remember watching that video on my phone, do you?” he asked.

“No,” I replied. “Because it wasn’t me you showed it to.”

“All right, well, I think it’s about time you saw it. Perhaps then you’ll change your mind about 208wanting to work together. Let’s get out of here.”

“Can’t you just show it to me now?”

“I can’t play the video in the lighthouse. Or anywhere near it. The building will know, and it … it won’t like it.”