Down on the driveway Cory clapped Dad’s shoulder, and Dad didn’t look remotely offended. I watched Cory point confidingly at my bedroom window, and just before I drew back I glimpsed Dad smiling and opening his mouth to reply. I was sure they were joking about me—about how I could still be flaked out at this hour of the morning, sleeping the sleep of the dead, or the just, or whatever the expression is. Dad would say, “Oh yes, I can believe it. That sounds like my Freya.” In that moment I hated my father, because he was turning Cory into a normal person who could laugh and make small talk, and I detested Cory even more because he was going along with it.

I sidled back into view and caught Tom’s eye as he shut the boot. The others had their backs to the house now; they were admiring the view across the garden to the sea. It was late; late and hot. The sun was high in the sky and the sea looked flat and blue, and any glitter the garden had gained from yesterday’s rainfall had already burned away. The magic of the night was over; had fizzled out before it had begun. Normal life was about to resume, with all its dullness and self-doubt.

Tom didn’t tell the others he’d seen me. I couldn’t manage a smile, but I moved my fingers in the ghost of a wave, and he replied in kind. “Come down?” he mouthed. I nodded and looked round for my shoes.

I panicked in the corridor. It sounds stupid, but it was black as a pit after all that dazzling sunshine, and I was afraid of losing myself in a fairy-tale tangle of passages and winding steps.

I stood with one hand against the wall and let out a long, slow breath. It was a landing, not a labyrinth—all I had to do was turn right and walk until I reached the top of the stairs. There was no need to rush, as if there were ceilings coming down on me and trapdoors swinging open at my feet; as if I were feeling my way through a muddle of smoke and mirrors instead of an ordinary stretch of darkness.

I rushed all the same. My flip-flops had come to hand when I was hunting around for shoes, and I regretted them now because they slapped so loudly against my soles. I was no longer a stranded mermaid in flowing green but a clumsy creature with webbed feet.

“Wait.”

I jerked to a halt. There. That was the kind of thing I’d been afraid of, and half expecting—the breathless voice of the house itself, addressing me out of the darkness.