‘You do look tired.’ Tara peers at me, and I get that feeling again of being under a spotlight. ‘OK, we can catch up next week. I have to pop across the road before I head to the café anyway.’ She glances over her shoulder, but I am not sure whether she is looking at The Daisy Chain or the small supermarket next to it. ‘See you at pick-up?’

I nod, and say goodbye, moving off in the direction of my house before I allow myself a quick glance over my shoulder. Tara is bumping the travel system over the threshold to The Daisy Chain. I try not to read too much into it.

Tired as I am, I don’t go straight home. The baby has settled again so I follow the path past the turning into the lane our house is on and carry on walking, round to the entrance to the woods that back onto the garden. Pausing as I come to the edge of the woods, I see that Tara is right about the trees. There isn’t really an entrance as such, just a place where the branches aren’t so tightly tangled together. There isn’t a path, although where the branches are thinner it does look as though someone has walked through, but not enough to be a proper, well-used path. It is overgrown this end, more overgrown than it is at the edge of the garden and I peer between the trees, looking for signs of life. It’s impossible for me to push the pram between the branches, and I don’t think I’d want to take the baby inside anyway. That strange oozing malevolence that I felt from the witch’s ladder is present here too, stronger, if anything. The hairs on the back of my neck prickle, and I feel as if someone is watching me, eyes on my skin. There’s someone here. The voice is in my head not in my ear, but the breeze ruffles my hair and I shiver, my blood running cold as I hear another, familiar sound. A child crying. It is coming from deep inside the trees, louder than I have heard it before on the other side by the house. I wait a moment, my heart in my mouth when it comes again, the distinct sound of a child, lost and afraid and calling for her mother.