‘Where’s the new girl?’ I ask. I wasn’t expecting Naomi to be on her own and had been hoping we could get some lunch together. I want to bounce Miranda’s witch house comment off her, to see what her reaction is.

Naomi shrugs. ‘She called in sick. She’s not been too reliable to be honest. I can’t see her lasting.’

‘I can always help out.’

Naomi laughs. ‘Don’t be silly, Al, you’ve got enough on your plate with these two to look after. Not that I wouldn’t swap with you tomorrow if I could.’ She sobers, and I know what she’s going to ask me. ‘Are you OK? You look a bit pale.’

‘Mina, you want to watch Peppa?’ Ignoring Naomi’s frown, I hand Mina my phone and she sits cross-legged in the corner, immediately enthralled by a little talking pig. ‘A woman just referred to my house as the witch house.’

‘Huh? What do you mean?’

‘A woman at the baby group … she said Rav and I are “living in the witch house”.’ I sigh, peering down into my mug at the milky brown liquid. ‘She said it’s called Gowdie Cottage after someone named Agnes Gowdie.’

‘Who is Agnes Gowdie?’ Naomi frowns as she wraps a length of brown twine into a ball.

‘I don’t know.’ I shrug. ‘A witch?’

Naomi lets out a peal of laughter that makes the baby jump in his sleep. ‘Oh God, Allie, that’s hilarious. The witch house.’ She shakes her head, her laughter dying away as she realizes I’m not laughing with her. She looks at me askance. ‘You don’t believe them? Allie, come on. I didn’t think you were the type to buy into all that kind of thing.’

‘I don’t.’ My words are petulant, her laughter stinging my skin. ‘It’s just … a bit unnerving, that’s all. She was deadly serious.’

‘People believe in that stuff round here; they’ve all grown up on it,’ Naomi says matter-of-factly. ‘It’s all rubbish, Al, all of it. I’ve never seen anything in the village, have you?’

I pause, hesitant to say it out loud. ‘The person in the woods?’

‘Just someone out walking. You know the woods aren’t secure; they might be attached to your house but anyone can walk through them.’

‘I know but … I saw them again, the person in the woods.’ I shift in my seat, suddenly uncomfortable. ‘The way they moved … it was …’ Frightening, is what I want to say but I don’t. ‘And then there are the keys.’

‘Keys? What keys? You didn’t tell me about any keys.’ Naomi puts the ball of twine on the counter, where it immediately rolls to the floor and unravels. She tuts and rolls her eyes but leaves it, taking a seat opposite me.