“You never came home,” I say. “I waited and waited but you never came home. You know I can’t sleep until you come home.” Stupid tears won’t stop now; they’re filling my eyes so I can’t see her properly. There are smudges on her tank top, dark mud on the knees of her torn jeans. They weren’t there a minute ago. Her hair looks less smooth, it’s tangled, leaves caught in it. A drop of blood trickles down her cheek. Wrong. I close my eyes and shake my head. I don’t want to see her like this—I’ve spent years trying to erase that image. This is the way I last saw her, but I don’t want to remember her like this. I open my eyes and she’s bright, shining Bella again; beautiful, eighteen-year-old Bella.

“I’m sorry I died,” she says. “I’m sorry I never came home.”

I rub my eyes and press my hands to my aching head, touching the old scar on my forehead. She’ll disappear again in a minute, fade away like she always does in dreams. “You never came home. How am I supposed to ever get to sleep again?”

“You can’t,” she says. “Not yet. Promises to keep, miles to go—like that poem, remember?” She steps closer and whispers her next words. “And Tess? Remember this as well. It wasn’t an accident.”

I wake with a gasp and sit bolt upright. My hand flies to my wrist, expecting the sting of a burn. I sniff the air and, for a second, swear I can smell cigarette smoke. I lurch out of bed, looking at the clock. It’s two—same time as in the dream. There’s no Bella in my flat, not even a sense of her. I shake myself. Of course there isn’t.

I falter, though, when I go through to the kitchen to get a glass of water. There’s a mug on the side, half-full of tea. When I touch it, it’s warm and my wrist throbs with a remembered sting.

Not real, of course it wasn’t real. But…it was so vivid. Was I sleepwalking? Talking out loud to a dream of my sister’s ghost? I must have been.

I shiver, remembering her words. It wasn’t an accident.

Why am I doing this to myself? Talking to Dad, thinking about the others, it’s made me remember the aftermath of Bella’s death, how I insisted something sinister must have happened, that it would take more than a stupid accident to kill my sister. Months of denial right up until the inquest findings. I’ve projected my own long-buried fears onto a figment of my imagination. Of course it was an accident. Of course it was.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4