She still shuddered as she recalled the way Raven Hall had sprung up around her like a prison and she had felt at once that she was another person – that this was her home, and had been for years. Too many years. At the back of her mind was the vaguest recollection of how, in the early days, she had tried desperately to keep hold of who she was, clinging to the frayed edges of her identity with bloodied fingertips. But time and suffering had chipped her inner self away bit by bit until nothing remained, and now she was only a husk, with no opinions of her own, no thoughts in her head, save for a cringing horror of the man who slept beside her each night.

Within the purple rain she found herself outside Eustace’s study door, her hand raised to knock on it. She was there on some trivial matter, some humdrum housekeeping issue that she needed to get his approval on. And yet, the thought of entering that room filled her with such dread. The door seemed to get darker and more defined, the longer she stared at it, scorching itself into her eyes until it was the only thing that existed in the world. She saw the whorls and knots in the solid oak and they appalled her. In every way it was an unremarkable door, and yet the sight of it made her want to turn and run, and keep on running. But no matter how far she ran, she would only ever find herself back here, in Raven Hall, before this very same door.

A bitter taste flooded her mouth, even worse than the time she’d been so unwise, as a girl, to lick one of the black apple skins. She gagged. She could feel her thinness in the way her bones pressed through her skin. She was completely hollow. If only she had never met Eustace. If only she had never walked down that aisle, knowing full well that she shouldn’t. But now all her choices boxed her in and bound her to this cursed house in the heaviest of chains …

She took a stumbling step back from the door, but instead of stepping into an empty corridor, her back pressed against something. She turned and saw that there was a tree inside the house. Not one of her beloved apple trees – Eustace had had those chopped down and burned years ago. No, this was a plum tree, impossibly beautiful, filling the corridor with the scent of its amethyst blossoms as its elegant branches grew along the corniced ceiling and its roots pulled up the polished floorboards.

A fat, ripe plum fell to the floor, followed by another, and another. The ceiling peeled away to reveal the outline of a hothouse against a starry night sky. Purple rain fell into the room and snow blew across the floor.