‘I’m glad you did. How was your meeting yesterday?’ I ask, stepping towards her with a brief glance back towards the kitchen. I don’t have the baby monitor, although the baby is still asleep in his pram and I’m sure Mina has parked herself in front of the television while I am distracted.

‘Eh. Busy. Full of men explaining things I already know. How are you today?’ Mum looks at me closely, as she rubs a rosemary stem between her fingers releasing the pungent scent. ‘This smell reminds me of Paris.’

‘Oh, you know. Tired.’ I force out a laugh. ‘I found bones tied to the tree outside, and I think Naomi might think I’m going mad.’

‘Bones? What is this?’

I tell her what I found, that creeping sense of dread tickling between my shoulder blades as I picture the bones upstairs in the drawer. It’s as if there is a tie between us, something dark and tangled that makes my skin crawl and I swallow hard at the idea of touching them again, but the thought of throwing them away makes my pulse skip and a knot tie in my belly. ‘I haven’t told Rav yet that I found them. I’m not sure that he’ll be very happy about it.’ He’ll tell me to throw them out, or worse he’ll throw them out himself. I don’t want him to touch them, and I can’t explain why but I feel too frightened to let them go until I know why they were left there, what significance they hold.

My mother shrugs, hand going to the pocket of her tailored shift dress, to the bulge of her cigarette packet. ‘You say that you think Naomi thinks you are crazy.’

‘I don’t know that, I just get that feeling, after she sent that text to Rav, and they met in the pub without me. I think she thinks that there’s something wrong with me.’

‘But she didn’t say this? This is only what you think, but perhaps you need to be careful what you say to her. Just in case.’ She shrugs again, lighting her cigarette and blowing the smoke in my direction, causing me to flap my hand to wave it away. ‘Have you looked at these plants?’ my mother says, turning her attention back to the borders. ‘I can see why your friend called this place the witch house. Look, sage, rosemary, lavender. All healing plants.’