By daylight, it was easy to treat this girl as a regular child. Other than her pallor, there was no material difference between her and Cedric, or even someone like Lavinia Campbell. But there is something ethereal about Pearl’s albinism at night. Her shape seems to be pinned against the darkness, the reverse of a shadow. Agnes could swear that she trails a fine mist as she moves.

‘Can we do it now?’ she asks. ‘The séance?’

Pearl hesitates. ‘I’m tired,’ she replies softly. She does look it. ‘And Myrtle might hear us.’

‘Then you will have to come to me.’

‘What?’

Agnes feels like a pressed flower, sapped of her essence, but she needs to recover her wits quickly. She’ll be damned if she’s spent hours in that worm-eaten wardrobe for nothing.

‘Where did you say my carpet bag was, dear?’

Pearl moves the light and shows her where the bag sits, beside her narrow little excuse for a bed.

‘Come and look.’ Agnes gropes her way forwards, struggling to keep her movements quiet and her voice hushed. Now that she is out of captivity, she is aware of the rotting smell again: an odour somewhere between potato peelings and a spoiled egg.

Her carpet bag contains a set of Cedric’s clothes and a large cap that belonged to Agnes’s grandfather. One of Papa’s greatcoats sits under the collection, still faintly speckled with tobacco.

‘If you could not do a séance today, I was going to ask you to creep out and come to my house at a later date,’ Agnes explains. ‘I have drawn you a detailed map of the buildings, you see. You can understand where to go even if you cannot read the words. I thought that if you dressed as a boy, there would be less danger in walking alone …’ Only now does she realise how absurd this plan sounds. Hurriedly, she puts the map away. ‘But tonight I can bring you there myself. If I wear the greatcoat, we will pass for a man and his son, no one will remark upon it. And our séance will not be disturbed at my house. My family sleep deeply, believe me.’

‘I’m not going anywhere with you,’ Pearl asserts.

Of course she isn’t. The girl may be young, but she has a steady head on her shoulders, which is more than Agnes can say for herself. What was she thinking? Has she really grown desperate enough to come up with this half-baked scheme?

She nods, defeated. ‘I understand.’

Pearl watches her repack. The small, white face shows reluctance, but there is something harder under there, pushing against it.