"Hey, you," she said, laughing, "welcome home." Her hair smelled like camomile. I dropped the case and hugged her back; it was a strange feeling, as if I were touching someone out of an old painting, amazed to find her shoulder blades warm and solid as my own. Daniel nodded gravely at me over her head and ruffled my hair, Rafe grabbed my case and started bumping it up the steps to the door, Justin patted my back over and over and I was laughing too, and I didn't even hear Frank start the car and drive away.

* * *

This is the first thing I thought when I stepped into Whitethorn House: I've been here before. It zinged straight through me, straightened my spine like a crash of cymbals. The place bloody well should have looked familiar, all the hours I'd spent staring at photos and video, but it was more than that. It was the smell, old wood and tea leaves and a faint whiff of dried lavender; it was the way the light lay along the scarred floorboards; it was the little taps our footsteps sent flying up the stairwell, echoing softly along the upstairs corridors. It felt--and you'd think I would like this but I didn't, it flashed danger-sign red right across my mind--it felt like coming home.

From there on, most of that evening is a merry-go-round blur, colors and images and voices whirled together into a burst almost too bright to look at. A ceiling rose and a cracked china vase, a piano stool and a bowl of oranges, running feet on stairs and a rising laugh. Abby's fingers small and strong on my wrist, leading me out to the flagstoned patio behind the house, curlicued metal chairs, ancient wicker swing seat swaying in the light sweet breeze; great sweep of grass falling away to high stone walls half hidden in trees and ivy, blink of a bird's shadow across the paving stones. Daniel lighting my cigarette, his hand cupped round the match and his bent head inches from mine. The full ring of their voices hit me like a shock, after the flattened-out video sound, and their eyes were so clear they burned on my skin. Sometimes, still, I wake up with one of their voices strong and close by my ear, fallen straight out of that day: Come here, Justin calls, come outside, the evening's so lovely; or Abby says, We have to decide what to do with the herb garden, but we were waiting for you, what do you--and I'm awake, and they're gone.