‘That is why you must not speak of ghosts, why we all stay silent. The doctor will be coming again in a month or so.’ Her face grew serious and there was entreaty in her expression. ‘Make her look to the living, Miss Swansome, and not to the dead.’

I remained at the top of the stairs watching her cap descend, my heart beating hard against my ribcage.

I sank to the hall chair. Beyond the window, the cold sea seemed uncrossable. Yet I could not imagine another day within Iskar’s walls, another week. How would I endure all those things that were unbearable? I thought of Mary, with her kind thoughts but the actions that spoke too loudly of things that were unpalatable. I remembered home with a sort of impossible longing. Perhaps Alison MacAllister had been right. If I had stayed, at least I would have been with friends in a life that made sense. But then I thought of Mary again and my heart squeezed tight in pity and guilt.

Downstairs, the evening passed and I was aware of the crawl of the clock; how with each half-hour my discomfort grew. Too soon, I was climbing the stairs to my passageway where the salted air slipped in from beneath distant doors and travelled the corridors. The wind was in the eaves, and in the narrow passage to Hettie’s room.

My thoughts were poisonous. I knew I would not sleep. The atmosphere chilled and flattened and shadows fell heavily along the wall. I opened the drawer for my book and set something rattling. When I leaned over to discover the cause, there lay a doll, face up.

I recoiled as though bitten. When my dismay was spent, I took it out. A particular discolouration of the torso made me suspect that it was the one that had been in William’s room. I gazed down, horrified. The face that was no face. A scraped-away surface that was more repulsive for the absence of features. As I stared, a rush of knowledge came to me and I felt, in some part of me, that it watched me back. I slammed the drawer shut but the feeling did not diminish. My hand was unclean.

And all the time, I was aware that I was waiting, waiting for Greer’s step on the corridor. And even though I expected it, it came, as always, as something newly insufferable.

I held my breath. My hands grew icy. Greer stopped outside my door and her purpose dragged at me like a piece of skin caught on a fish-hook. Her breathing curled on the air and her shoe fell still. I tried to resist her but my will bent to hers until, like the snapping of a line, she sighed and began her song once more.