Something malevolent had taken over his body, jerking him this way and that as if he was a cloth doll. He reached out, blind, and his fingers found slim iron bars. He instinctively curled his fists around the hard metal. Was this the gate, the factory gate? He could pull himself to the top of it, but he was too afraid to loosen his grip even though his lungs were bursting. Repeated blows pummelled his back and then his arms were almost ripped from their sockets. The gate had been torn from its foundations. Silas released his grip and flailed upwards, his head breaking the surface of the water into instant chaos, the roar loaded his ears again, he was in a wild ocean. He had time to gasp for breath, then was pulled down again, into the black and crowded void, then up, popping to the surface like an apple in a barrel.

Searing pain cracked across the back of his skull. It was the branch of a tree. Dizzied, he lunged for the branch and clung on, barely conscious of the rapids that surged around him, adrift on the churning ocean that had once been land.

Harriet gasped into wakefulness.

She’d been dreaming that Walter was berating her for some duty not carried out to his liking and during his tirade all the mirrors in the house had shattered. Polly had sneered from her bed. ‘How many years of bad luck have you brought this family, Harriet? How many?’ The glass in the mirrors had screamed as the shards fell. High-pitched screams of fear.

Screams. A young girl’s screams. A weight on Harriet’s face. She realised Alice was crawling over her, suffocating her, reaching for the bedframe above her head. A vinegary stink filled her nostrils and a crashing, rushing sound filled her ears. The chill air sucked the heat from her body.

‘Alice, stop! Get off me!’ She put her hands around Alice’s wriggling torso and used all her strength to push the girl’s soft bulk away. She felt rather than saw Alice fall back on to the mattress.

She swung her feet out of bed. Something was dreadfully wrong. Her heart plunged in shock as she fell forward into freezing water. Harriet spluttered and struggled to her feet. She was up to her waist in freezing water. It was not possible. She turned in a stumbling circle about the dark room, searching for a chink of light. A violent shove, a surge, nearly took her off her feet. Harriet screamed and then froze. She was submerged up to her neck, her nightgown billowing up to surround her. She moaned in fear through closed lips. The water was at her chin. They would drown. She must still be dreaming. She knew she was not, and that the distraction her mind was trying to conjure could kill them both.

‘Alice, Alice!’ She spluttered the words. Alice continued to wail so she could not be underwater. Something hard struck her in the chest and she reached for it. Her fingers closed around a slender piece of wood. She reached up to find the end of it, and realised she was holding one of the bed legs. The bed was floating, with her clinging to it.