Three o’clock in the morning. The real witching hour, not midnight as I always believed. The sensation of someone sitting on the bed wakes me from the light, troubled doze I have fallen into and I blink myself awake, sure for a moment that I can feel a hand on my chest, the warmth of a palm lingering on my skin. I lie still, Rav’s snore rumbling in my ear as he sleeps the dead slumber of the deceitful, waiting for something. I have the feeling that I was not alone while I was sleeping. That someone was there, watching me. I lie there, trying to keep my breathing even and regular as my heart crashes in my chest and my skin prickles with goosebumps, but there is no movement, no longer any sense that there is someone in the room other than Rav. A dream, that’s all. But even as I think the words, I know I don’t believe them. The baby stirs and I feed him quickly and silently, before placing him back in the cot and going to stand at the landing window, the chilly draught around my legs. Rav still snores lightly and I am alone. I can’t sleep, visions of feathers, a figure on the stairs, a flash of movement in the mirror, my mother, Rav drinking in a pub forty miles closer to home than he said he was, all dancing in my head as soon as I close my eyes. I look out on to the woods, strain behind my eyes causing the faint thud of a headache at the bridge of my nose. Why were Rav and Naomi meeting at the pub? And why would he lie? Is this something to do with the text she sent him about needing to talk to him? They looked like they belonged together, I think, picturing them in the pub, they looked like a couple. Is that what this is? A prickle of unease runs down my spine, as a fox appears at the edge of the woods, his head raised as he sniffs the air. Wily, cunning, sharp. Can these words apply to Rav too? The fox steps towards the pond, his nose close to the ground now, hunting something that has scurried along this same path. There is a shriek from the woods, a high, keening sound that makes my breath stick in my throat and my hand flies to my mouth, a pulse roaring in my ears. Just an animal, I tell myself, an owl, or a mate to the sleek, red fox that works its way towards the water now, the lumpen, dark body of something rustling in the reeds, before slipping into the water, ripples spreading across the broken surface. An animal, nothing more. I close my eyes to the image of a small body, huddling in the trees, the moonlight casting a blue-white aura around her blonde hair. Agnes’s child, still waiting, still lost. The shriek comes again, and I turn from the window, anxious to lie next to Rav’s warm, lying, deceitful body. It sounds unnervingly human.