And I imagined them together, he and Hettie, trapping the creatures, crafting bone to call the dead, and I was visited by rage for the woman who had manipulated a child so. I fixed the boards back into place and stood shivering in the chilled air. They had not lied or exaggerated. William had gone bad to the core.

Outside his room, I walked to the end of the hall and came to another staircase leading to more attics. The steps were worn and woodworm had dropped dust to the treads, but there were cleaner patches where someone had placed their feet. When Greer opened this wing, was this where she went? Did she know of William’s hiding place? I was keen to climb but the hour was growing close and I knew that I must return the key. I did not trust Greer’s sly looks. I felt in everything she did that desire to make mischief. I turned to leave, pausing once more in William’s room, and saw something that I must have missed on my first search, yet I could have sworn it had not been there before. Laid so carefully on his bed was the red engine with the rusted wheels.

I left the wing at a run. Outside, even with the door re-locked, my heart thumped and it was as if the tainted air had settled on my skin. I put my palm out to touch the wood and leaned close. And thought I heard it.

A distant sound, thin and wavering.

17

As Mary and I walked on the sands the next day, I gazed across the ocean to the home I once knew and was aware of a deeper dismay. As if sensing some withdrawal, Mary kept close and her eye was on me often as if searching for some proof that I cared less.

Her nearness was my only comfort. And if I had any doubts, I told myself that there was no evidence that she too had turned bad. I would have seen or heard of it by now if that were the case, and other than the pebble I had found in her pocket, there had been nothing else to hint at aberrant behaviour. Even so I was aware that my hand might not wield as much influence over my charge as I hoped.

How I wished, then, that I could catch a cab to some cheerful market town – full of the smells of cakes and cooking meat, stalls of flowers and costume jewellery to engage my eye, a coffee house that sold fancy cakes and chocolate and a hot, sweet drink to follow. I recalled what it was like to hear my heels clipping on cobbles, to smell pipe smoke, the gas of the streetlamps and factory fumes, the belch of alcohol and the swell of sound that emerged from ale houses.