‘Just let me die!’ Grace cried. ‘Leave me alone and let me die!’

Because if she couldn’t live without pain, then she at least deserved peace. With a sickening realisation, she read the expression her mother failed to conceal. Confirmation that her worse fear was coming true. She was dying.

A familiar pattern of knocking rattled their front door. Without another word, Susan rushed to answer it. Her movements were stiff and angular, her breath juddering as she left. Seeking a familiar object, Dawn drew her Pluto soft toy close. She imagined being buried in the forest. Growing in the earth with the bluebells. She would finally be free.

‘I don’t want to die,’ she cried meekly into Pluto’s synthetic fur. ‘I want to live.’

For all the comforting thoughts she tried to concoct, all she felt was unadulterated fear.

She wanted to see their visitor, but after battling with her mother, she could barely find the strength. Soon her stomach pains would return to cripple her. All the more reason to ask for help. With shaky limbs, she pulled back her blanket. Mummy had moved her wheelchair to the kitchen, but she could still get about. Grace edged to the end of the bed, grasping the unopened rainbow parasol that Lloyd had bought for her. He’d been optimistic about his choice of present not long after they first met.

‘For when you get better,’ he said with a smile. ‘It’ll keep the sun off your face.’

Not that it was the sun’s fault. Not any more. Using the brolly as a walking stick, she leaned on the handle. It made a clack, clack sound as she approached her door. Steadying herself, she wrapped her fingers around the cold metal doorknob, wincing as it opened with a creak.

Whining at her presence, Bonnie delivered a full body tail-wag. Stretching a hand through the gap in the door, Grace soothed her beloved pet. She knew that Bonnie sensed the stillness in the air. The rumbling thunder of foreboding. Sometimes Grace’s skin burned when she hadn’t been outside. The last time she had stolen some chocolate cake from the fridge, her tummy had been just fine. She rolled her tongue across her gum where her front teeth had once been. The last time JoJo was here, she’d asked why they had fallen out. But like always, her mother blamed it on the drugs. She wouldn’t need them, she’d said. Not when they put her feeding tube in. But she didn’t want a tube in her tummy. She didn’t want any of this. Most girls her age were listening to pop music and reading girls’ magazines. But Grace was living in a world of Disney, imprisoned behind closed doors.