My laughter dies as I pull up outside the house. I have to face Rav now and explain to him properly why I was so late to pick up Mina. He’s going to be cross, I think, when he finds out I took the witch’s ladder out of the dustbin. He’s going to ask me why, and I can’t explain it. All I can say is that I feel drawn to it, as if the black, twisting fingers of whatever spell has been tied to it are drawing me in. I sit in silence, watching the house, sifting over in my mind a way of explaining things to him that don’t make me sound as if I am going mad. I’ll have to tell him about what happened before. About Lillian Sparks and her dead baby. As I sit, I see the Turkish lamp go on in the sitting room at the front of the house, Rav appearing in the window with a glass of wine in one hand, about to draw the curtains. As he pulls the second curtain across, I see the silhouette of someone else in the house, standing in the doorway of the sitting room. Rav pauses for a moment, his face solemn, before pulling the curtains all the way shut, blocking my view.