I went to ask how a talented artist ended up scrubbing toilets for a living, but Derry cut in before I had a chance.

‘Then things started to go missing. Belongings of Aurelia’s.’

I processed this, thinking back to Tom’s cruel comment to her. I don’t appreciate lies.

‘Tom found them in Maren’s room,’ she continued. ‘Small things, really. A pair of earrings, some of her photographs. As you can well imagine he hit the bloody roof. Maren became obsessed with Aurelia, but Aurelia felt sorry for her. She was always so soft-hearted … She persuaded Tom to keep her on. Maren’s devious …’

‘I don’t think she’s devious,’ I said before I had thought it through, and Derry stopped walking and stared at me with an expression I couldn’t fathom.

‘Sophie, Sophie, Sophie,’ she said with a sympathetic shake of her head.

‘What?’

She bit something back. Then, placing a hand on my arm and fixing me with those big blue eyes: ‘For my money’s worth I’d say Maren locked you in that basement. Did you know Tom had called her earlier that evening to say we might not make it back that night?’

I drew a breath. ‘No?’

She gave a grim, I’m-sorry-to-say-so nod. ‘As far as Maren knew, nobody was coming. It was just going to be you, her, and the kids in the house.’

I felt my legs give. I would have been stuck in that basement all night.

‘Anyway,’ Derry said breezily, turning to nod at Granhus, which was now visible through the trees. ‘I’m here now. We can look out for each other, can’t we?’

   16   

THE CLIFF AND THE FOREST AND THE BEASTS

Then

Aurelia keeps her distance as Gaia plays in the forest. The snow is thick, the kind that turns the conifer trees into cottony white triangles and makes terrific snowmen. She and Gaia have had a fun morning building a family of snowmen, with carrot noses, pebble eyes, and twigs for arms and hair. Coco is still asleep in the baby sling, her little bobble hat slipping down over her eyes as she lolls against Aurelia’s left shoulder. Aurelia presses her camera to her eye and surveys the world through her lens. The trees are so tall that she can only capture their powdery white skirts and the virgin snow, foam-smooth, that sweeps across the forest floor. She leans close to a crooked branch adorned with a triangular prism of snow. Click. Gaia has discarded her fleece hat and rolled up the sleeves of her snowsuit to do cartwheels in the snow. ‘Watch me, Mumma!’ Click. Aurelia crouches down to inspect something on the ground. A deep, clean imprint in the snow. Click.

‘Mumma, you weren’t watching. I did a perfect cartwheel.’