But Jack didn’t stop. He raced down a lane and turned a corner. ‘Here it is!’ he cried.

Akiko and Yori hurried to join him as he shouted, ‘Jess! I’m home! JESS!’

Jack felt a surge of joy and relief to be finally home. After all these years he would be reunited with his sister again. They would be a family once more!

His father’s thatched white-washed cottage with its garden plot of herbs and apple trees was just as he remembered it. Except … the windows were boarded up, the front door too – a large red cross was daubed on it, with the words: Lord have mercy upon us.

Jack’s gut tightened, his joy instantly dissolving to ash. Sprinting up the overgrown garden path, he tore at the wooden planks blocking the doorway, screaming, ‘No! No! NO!’

Akiko pulled him away from the door. ‘Jack, don’t – look! Is that wise?’ she questioned, eyeing the ominous red cross.

Too shocked to think straight, Jack shook her off and yanked at the last plank. The iron nails protested but eventually gave way, the wood splintering in his grasp. Tossing the plank aside, he grabbed the latch and threw open the door. A waft of stale air assailed him as if he’d broken the seal to some ancient and cursed tomb. Nonetheless, he stepped inside the cottage.

The front parlour was shrouded in shadows, dark and dismal. The boards across the window were like bars to a prison cell. Blackened stubs of candles protruded from their holders and dust had settled on his father’s armchair by the fire. Jack stood transfixed in the middle of the room, barely able to breathe. No longer was his home the warm and welcoming place of his childhood. It had become a crypt.

Akiko and Yori followed him tentatively inside.

‘I really don’t think we should be in here …’ said Yori, glancing around nervously, a visible shudder running through his slight frame.

Akiko nodded in agreement. ‘There’s a good reason why the house is b–’

Jack held up his hand, silencing her. ‘Jess?’ he called softly. ‘Are you there?’

His voice sounded dead and dull in the heavy silence. He crossed the room, past the fireplace, its hearth cold and empty, and over to a door. Heading along a narrow passage, he made his way to the kitchen at the rear. The faint, sickly-sweet smell of decay lingered in the air there too. On the kitchen table, there appeared to be the remains of a meal, half-prepared and abandoned. Pewter plates, iron pans and knives were all there, but the food had rotted away. In one dark corner of the room lay a litter of bones, too small to be human. A dog or a cat? But they hadn’t kept any pets.