‘I know what happened,’ I say bluntly. ‘I know her baby brother died, and her mother was put away.’ Miranda opens her mouth to speak, but I carry on. ‘I know Elsie thinks Agnes was responsible.’

‘They said her mother was depressed, that she couldn’t cope with the baby,’ Miranda says reluctantly. ‘I don’t know how true that is.’

‘Elsie didn’t believe that,’ I say. ‘Here, I wanted to show you something.’ I shove my purchases into a carrier bag and pull out my phone. ‘Look at this.’ I open up the image of the bones that I snapped with my phone and hand it to her. ‘I found this.’

‘In the house?’ Miranda looks for a long moment at the image, before raising her eyes to mine. Her face is pale and there is something in her tone that stops my hand in mid-air as it reaches for the phone.

‘Yes, in the house. At first, I thought maybe it was another charm, like the one Elsie Sparks hid in the floorboards, but there was something about it …’

‘It’s not a charm,’ Miranda says bluntly, pushing the phone back into my hands. ‘It’s a witch’s ladder.’

‘I know. I bought a book on witchcraft.’

‘Get rid of it, Allie. You have to get it out of your house.’

‘Get rid of it?’ I knew there was something off about it, the way it felt dark and sinister, even before I read about it, and Miranda’s reaction has confirmed that what I read is true. There is something bad attached to that coil of hair and feathers. ‘I found bones too, in the trees, tied together. What is it, Miranda?’

She leans in close. ‘It’s a curse,’ she hisses. ‘A witch’s ladder is a curse. The knots have to be untied and a new spell spoken over it to break it, or you must destroy it. Allie, this witch’s ladder, it doesn’t have to be a curse on you.’

‘Miranda, I don’t—’

‘It could be a curse on your house.’

My hands shake as I slide back behind the wheel of the car, tucking my groceries into the passenger footwell. A curse. On me, or on our house, possibly. Part of me can’t believe what Miranda says – the rational part of me that knows it is all superstitious nonsense. Then there is the other part of me, who sees movement in the mirror, figures on the stairs, hears the cries of a child coming from the trees. A child who disappeared four hundred years ago. Idiot, I try to laugh, the sound raw and catching in my throat. Superstitious nonsense. There’s no such thing as ghosts.