‘Enough. That’s enough now.’ My voice is loud in the thick quiet of the room, the tiny Turkish lamp in the corner giving out barely enough light to see by. Rav complains about it, says there is no point in a lamp that barely gives out any light, but usually I like it. It’s cosy, warm. Now though, I wish I had a lamp of surgical levels – especially as the overhead light bulb blew the day that we brought the baby home, and neither of us have remembered to buy a replacement. The noise comes again, and I feel it as well as hear it this time, as if tiny hands are digging tiny claws into my skin. I move to the fireplace, creeping silently, waiting for it to come again. As I move across the room, something – someone – rushes past the doorway into the hall, a black blur in the corner of my eye. Freezing on the spot, I turn towards the doorway, aware as I do so that the air around me is disturbed and scented with the faint smell of rosemary, a perfume that seems to grow stronger as I breathe in.

‘Rav?’ I whisper, barely able to hear myself over the banging thud of my pulse. ‘Rav, is that you? I’m in here.’ I don’t know why I’m whispering, who I am afraid of disturbing – the children wouldn’t hear me upstairs. There is no response, but the rosemary still lingers in the air, thick and heavy, so strong I can almost taste it. I inch my way towards the empty doorway on silent feet, pausing as I reach the threshold. I peer out, into the darkened hallway, making out the outline of the coat stand by the door with Rav’s coat and Mina’s tiny jacket hanging from it. There is no one there. The hallway is empty, but I would swear on Mina’s life that someone rushed past the doorframe just seconds earlier. I stand there, my bare feet cold on the ancient quarry tiles, waiting in the dark, but there is nothing. Not even the scent of rosemary on the air now, almost as though I imagined it. Turning back to the sitting room, my feet glad to be leaving the cold tiles of the hallway, I realize if it had been Rav in the hall then I would have heard his footsteps, but there were none. Whatever I saw moved silently.