‘Mina!’ I shout, looking around wildly. There is still no sign of her. ‘Please,’ I whimper, before gulping in a huge breath and ducking back into the dark, weed-ridden water. I dive down and resurface again and again, my legs getting weaker and my voice hoarser with every try. My toes sink into the thick, claggy mud, weeds wrapping themselves around my legs as I reach out, swiping and groping, desperate for my fingers to snag on anything other than reeds. The pond isn’t anywhere near as deep as a lake, but it’s still over a metre and a half to the bottom, plenty deep enough to take Mina. I feel my nightshirt billowing around me, my lungs aching and stars starting to burst behind my eyelids. If I can’t find her, I think, what is the point of coming back up for air? I hear the bell of the rattle again, not understanding how. Didn’t I leave it in the pantry? How can it be under the water with me? I’m going to lose her. Agnes has taken her for her own, just like the others. I close my eyes, arms still outstretched and let myself sink further towards the bottom. Mina, I’m sorry.

A hand latches itself around my wrist and yanks me unceremoniously back to the surface. As my face breaks through the water, I gulp and then start to cough, dank, dark pond water scorching my throat as I cough it from my lungs.

‘Allie, Jesus Christ, what the hell are you doing?’ Rav has pulled me from the water and now sits behind me, his legs either side of my body as both arms snake around my waist, clutching me tightly.

‘Let go. Let me go!’ I wriggle, fighting back against him, but he holds me tighter. Panic overwhelms me and I claw and scratch, anything to get him to let me go, let me back into the water to find Mina. ‘She’s in there!’ I shriek finally, unable to fight him off. ‘Mina is in there! Agnes has her! In the water … please, Rav, let me go, I have to get to her, it’ll be too late …’ Sobs wrack my body, but still Rav doesn’t let me go.

‘Shhh, Allie, please, you have to calm down.’ He doesn’t relinquish his hold, drawing me even tighter to him if that’s possible. ‘She’s not in there. Listen to me – Mina isn’t in the water.’

‘What?’ I go still, my face still anxiously searching the body of water in front of us.

‘Mina isn’t in the water, Al,’ Rav says quietly. ‘She’s asleep in her bed.’

‘Did you …’ My teeth begin to chatter violently.