‘You stay there, poppet.’ After lunch, snuggled together on the sofa, I slide out from under Mina’s bony elbows and take the baby upstairs to the cot, swapping his tiny body for the plastic heft of the baby monitor. I step lightly down the stairs, ignoring the chill that permeates the landing, a basket of laundry under my arm, a sense of normality descending. As I shove the clothes into the machine, I wonder if I have been overthinking things. I didn’t sleep last night, but I also didn’t have the dream. I am tired, but what new mother wouldn’t be? The health visitor didn’t seem to see any problems with me, or the baby, so maybe that’s all it is, a dream. Maybe my mother is right – I should forget about all of it and start over with Rav. The washing machine begins to turn slowly, the dull whirring a comfortable, normal sound. I spritz over the kitchen counters, change the bin, bleach the sink, inhaling the chlorine-y scent that hangs in the air reminding me of the pool, of hours spent in my teenage years doing lengths until my arms hurt and my breath felt raw in my throat. Mrs Sparks’s words don’t mean anything, I tell myself as I scrub, and wipe, and mop. It’s just superstition, a story made up to draw in the tourists like all the other ghost stories. She never actually said what happened in the house, just that it was active, which realistically could mean anything. Maybe her parents didn’t get along and that was the crying she heard at night when her baby brother was sleeping. How could anything awful happen in a house that smells so fresh, that houses a happy family? I blot out the image of the tied rosemary hanging over the kitchen doorway, ignore the thought of the rusty iron keys that had lain jumbled in a tangled heap in the piles of junk of the top of the dresser, as I scour and clean, my positivity fading, and I jump as the doorbell rings.