I slide my feet into slippers, big, cosy, fluffy monstrosities that Rav had laughed at when he saw them, but now

I am grateful for them as the floorboards beneath my feet are icy cold, the chill wafting up around my bare legs.

A cup of tea, I think. That’s all I need and then I’ll go backto bed.

Silently I move around the kitchen, tiredness tugging at my bones but feeling too unsettled to sleep. I pause as I pour boiling water over a teabag, a creak above me stop-ping me in my tracks as I wait for Mina or Rav to appear in the doorway. No one does, and I realize it must just be the house settling, the old beams and boards sighing as they move. Letting out my breath, I step over to the battered oak table, pulling my cardigan tighter around me. The kitchen is always slightly chilly, as is the landing at the top of the stairs. Rav says it’s because the sash windows are old, that the house is old and we shouldn’t expect it to be as snug as a new build, but I’m not quite so convinced. Surely then the whole house should be cold? I blow on the steaming

hot tea and give myself a mental shake. I’m just feeling off kilter because of the dream. It was so vivid, so real. I could feel the creak of the stairs under my feet, the carpet under my toes as I walked across the landing, the cold spot in the moonlight as I paused and peered into the room, to

where Mina was sleeping. The headache that thumped at

my temples in the dream pulses there now, and I reach for the packet of Co-codamol that was sent home with me

from the hospital, swallowing two down with gulps of hot tea that scald my throat. I watch the hands on the kitchen clock tick round towards four o’clock, the dark outside the kitchen window beginning to lighten now from velvety

black to a deep purple. In the dream, it was dark, but with bright moonlight pouring in. Now, the moonlight that

sliced through the bedroom curtains is gone and I can’t see anything out of the window, just my own reflection staring dark-eyed back at me, my hair a tumbled mass of bright blonde, almost white at the tips where it has been bleached by the sun. I think again of the dream, the way my heart had hammered in my chest making it difficult to breathe, and I shiver, pulling the soft wool of my cardigan up high around my neck. It doesn’t feel like a dream. It was too real, too intense to be just a dream. It feels more like a memory.