I thank her and walk away quickly, limping on my still sore ankle. Stumbling over branches and twigs in my short sprint back to the baby didn’t help it. By the time I open the front door to the house I am ready for some strong painkillers, my throat thick with unshed tears. I lift the baby gently out of the pram, holding him close and inhaling his scent as my eyes fill, and I feel that familiar sting in the bridge of my nose. I can’t believe I did something so stupid. So risky. God forbid, if Naomi or Rav hear about this, I’ll really be in trouble. I make little shushing noises at the baby, holding his head close to my shoulder, feeling the weight of his tiny body across my chest. He snuffles, twisting his head away and I kiss his downy hair. I can’t let anything happen to either of my babies. I have to follow Miranda’s advice and get the bones and the witch’s ladder out of the house, or least get them out of my bedroom away from the baby. I feed him, blinking and shifting in the feeding chair so that I don’t doze off, and once he is finished, I lay him down in the cot and then pull out the book on witchcraft from under the mattress. Pausing briefly at the page on the witch’s ladder, I keep flicking through until I find a section on bones.

Bones can be used as part of a binding spell. It is believed that a witch can tap into the energy of the bones, thereby enabling her to use the bones to capture part of the spirit, binding them eternally. To break the binding, the bones should be buried in the earth, capturing the witch’s spirit and preventing her from doing further harm.

I feel cold, goosebumps rising on my arms as I push the book to one side and move to the drawers where I have hidden everything. Miranda said, to break the curse on the witch’s ladder a spell should be said over it as the knots are untied, but I don’t know any spells, and I don’t know if I can bear to touch it long enough to unpick the knots. Would burying everything work? If it works for the bones, then perhaps that will work for the witch’s ladder too.