I lifted my head to scope the direction of the current and saw a log in front of me. Perhaps I could grab hold of it, I thought, and stop myself from drowning. Or maybe I could roll myself towards the riverbank. But as the water swept me closer, the log turned. Lightning fell across a hideous face with black eyes and a mouth pulled back into a snarl.

This was no hallucination. The Sad Lady was pulling me down the fjord. Only she wasn’t a lady, or even human. It was the monster I’d seen in the kitchen.

Silently she dipped beneath the water, ripples moving outward across the surface. Terror turned me rigid. Please, no, I prayed. Someone help! The water slapped and curdled at my body, and I could hear a growl from beneath the water. She wasn’t gone. After a moment, I saw light ahead, and I recognized where I was – I was headed towards the end of the cliff beneath Aurelia’s Nest. The light I could make out was from Granhus.

My feet hit the riverbank. The shape of the Sad Lady was moving under the black surface like a large fish. I waited for her to attack, but she didn’t. My fingers met reeds. Maybe, I thought, maybe I could pull myself out, somehow haul myself to safety. Maybe someone would find me.

But as I moved one arm, then the other, something tugged at my ankle. Gently, like you might tug a light cord – the Sad Lady, just letting me know she was there. I froze. So this was it, I thought.

But just then, a tiny orb of light from the ladder that led down the cliff face, and a shout. ‘Sophie!’

It was Gaia. Her voice was small in the distance, but the wind carried it and I knew it was her. I lifted my head and squinted into the darkness. I could just make out the small white glow of a torch moving slowly down the ladder.

‘Gaia!’ I shouted, the sight of her firing me back to life. ‘I’m here! I’m here, Gaia!’

It was stupid of me to shout that, for in an instant the tugging at my ankle stopped. Beneath the water I felt the creature move, large and swift, then it broke the surface, the weird bulbous head moving quickly towards Gaia.

‘Sophie!’ Gaia shouted again. She was at the bottom of the cliff now, waving from the little beach at the top of the fjord, and I could see from the torchlight that she was starting to wade into the water. A dark mound on the surface moved closer to her with frightening speed.

‘Gaia!’ I shouted. ‘Go back!’

But my voice was too weak for her to hear. She was still shouting with excitement, and that thing was inching towards her.

It would kill her.