‘You and me together, then,’ she whispers, her own voice sounding oddly echoey and unfamiliar, as if coming from a long way off. She opens her eyes again. Although it is still nighttime, and the room is lit only by the single candle, she is surrounded by a pale glow. It does not come from the bracelet, she realizes, but from herself. It grows stronger, until the whole room is soon brightly lit. So brightly that it makes her squint. Alarmed, she wonders if it will become too harsh for her unprotected eyes to cope with, but she senses a steadying in the pulsating aura.

It’s okay. It’s okay.

As her vision adjusts to the glare she can make out shapes moving on the edge of her sightline. Things blur and jump fractionally beyond the reach of her imperfect eyesight. She turns her head this way and that, trying to focus, to catch one of the phantom shapes more clearly. Thistle’s ears prick up and she, too, turns to look.

‘You see them too?’

Remembering something about magic-eye pictures requiring the viewer to half close their eyes, Tilda tries this technique, but still the objects are blurred and malformed. She blinks and then, instinctively, shuts her eyes once more.

‘Oh!’ She cannot help exclaiming aloud, for with her lids tightly closed she is able to see the apparitions clearly. They are no longer fleeting glimpses of something, but clearly defined, and brilliantly colored. There are two hares, their eyes bright and fur dense and luxuriant. Birds swoop and soar—she counts two owls and a hawk before becoming distracted by a white horse. It gallops across the hectic scene, riderless, mane flowing, silent hooves pounding the insubstantial ground. She tries to follow it, turning, but senses it is passing beyond her reach. She cannot stop herself opening her eyes, at which point the horse fades to a mere shadow. She shuts her eyes again quickly but the horse has vanished.

Damn! I should have known.

She is entirely lost in the beauty and wonder of what she is seeing, as the hares and the birds continue to dance and fly. Only gradually does she become aware of the ringing noise again, growing steadily stronger. And as it does so it alters, shifting in both pitch and tone. Soon it is no longer bell-like but an eerie wail, distant and distorted by a flat echo.

Like the singing of a mermaid! Or whale song!

The volume of the sound increases, and as it does so the vision changes. Gone is the light. The woodland creatures disappear, to be replaced by deepening darkness and a sense of plummeting that makes Tilda feel both dizzy and a little sick. She forces herself to stay with whatever is happening, to follow where she is being taken. The bracelet on her arm is getting hotter again. The strange sound is so loud now she instinctively puts her hands over her ears.