THIS MORNING, FOR the third day running, the mist hangs like a Sail over Montmartre. They’re promising snow in a day or two; but for today the silence is eerie, swallowing the usual sounds of traffic and the footsteps of the pedestrians on the cobbles outside. It might be a hundred years ago, with frock-coated ghosts looming out of the fog—

Or it might be the morning of my last day of school, the day of my emancipation from St Michael’s-on-the-Green, the day I first realized that life – that lives – are nothing but dead letters on the wind, to be picked up, collected, burnt or thrown away whenever the opportunity demands.

You’ll learn that soon enough, Anouk. I know you better than you know yourself; there’s a complex potential for anger and hate behind that good-little-girl façade, just as there was in the Girl Who Was It – the girl who was I – all those years ago.

But everything needs a catalyst. Sometimes it’s a little thing; a featherweight; a flick of the fingers. Some piñatas are tougher than others. But everyone has a pressure point; and the box, once opened, cannot be shut.

Mine was a boy. His name was Scott McKenzie. He was seventeen; blond, athletic, unblemished. He was new to St Michael’s-on-the-Green; otherwise he would have known better from the start, and would have avoided the Girl Who Was It in favour of some more worthy candidate for his affections.

Instead, he chose me – at least for a time – and that was how it all began. Not the most original start, though it ended in flames, as these things should. I was sixteen, and with the aid of my System, I had made the most of myself. I was a little mousy, perhaps – the legacy of so many years of being the freak. But I had potential, even then. I was ambitious, resentful, nicely underhand. My methods were mainly practical, rather than occult. I had a working knowledge of poisons and herbs; I knew how to inflict violent stomach-aches on those who incurred my displeasure, and I soon learnt that a dash of itching powder in a fellow-pupil’s socks, or a squeeze of chilli oil in a mascara bottle could have a more instant and dramatic effect than any number of incantations.

As for Scott, he was easy to snare. Teenage boys, even the brightest ones, are one-third brain to two-thirds testosterone, and my recipe – a mixture of flattery, glamour, sex, pulque and very small doses of a powdered mushroom available to only a select few of my mother’s clientèle – made him my slave in no time at all.