‘What are we going to do?’ asked Bee. ‘Is Mary Kate safe in Angela’s cottage?’

‘I don’t know. There’s only one person who’d know the answer to that question. We need to call up Annie. Angela has never come to me, but now that you’re in training to be a seer she may come to you, as she’s your sister. Between them, we’ll find out the answers.’

*

Teresa Gallagher opened her front door to the sound of the bells calling her to Mass. She pulled on her gloves and secured her hatpin, then made to retrieve her sticks, which would be leaning against the wall, left there for her by Father Jerry on his way down to early Mass. In recent years, she’d not been able to make first Mass herself, finding the mornings harder; so she attended the second Mass, after school had started, along with the young mothers, something she secretly enjoyed.

‘Shall I walk with you, Teresa?’ Keeva’s voice called out from the bottom of the drive.

Unbeknown to Teresa, Father Jerry had asked Keeva to call for her and walk her down. He’d become more worried about her of late and had noticed her wobbling as she crossed the road the previous day.

‘Good morning, Keeva. I’m quite capable of walking myself, thank you.’

Despite the frosty greeting, Keeva remained exactly where she was. Teresa tutted to herself and turned to close the door. A note had been stuck half in and half out of the letterbox, its corner caught by the brass knocker, the rest flapping in the wind. ‘Well, what do we have here?’ she said as she pulled it free, the corner ripping on the knocker.

Keeva folded her arms and looked back down towards the church and the village women coming out of their doors and rushing along the road to make the last bell. Each one would have raced to finish one final domestic chore before they tore off their aprons, replaced them with coats and shawls, and slammed the door behind them. ‘Teresa, come on, would you,’ she shouted as she turned around. ‘I’m not going without you.’

But Teresa was no longer standing; she had slowly slid down onto a pot of winter pansies and her face had turned the colour of the sheet of paper she was holding in her hands. ‘Keeva, get Father Jerry,’ she said.

‘I can’t,’ said Keeva as she unlatched the gate and ran up the path. ‘Mass is about to start.’

Teresa gripped the sides of the pot and pushed herself up. ‘Help me,’ she said, ‘this is serious. Mary Kate has been kidnapped and whoever it is, he wants money from American Joe before he will let us have her back.’

*

Mary Kate had woken on a hard floor, in darkness. As she tried to move her hands, she could immediately tell they were bound, and so were her ankles. She was in her nightclothes and seemed to have only one boot on. She lay on her back and blinked into the dark. Her instinct was to scream, but instead she froze, her throat thick and dry. There was an astringent smell that made her eyes water. It reminded her of St Angelus and Nicholas. She had dreamt of him for the first time and as she woke, her heart was full of him, as though he was with her, could see her. She half expected to hear his voice. What had she dreamt? She searched her mind, trying desperately to recall the details, and they came at her in a rush: her velvet ribbon, her emerald heart.