It’s the sound of scissors. Somebody is using scissors in a dark corner of my room. They’re cutting slowly, as if the scissors were blunt or the material too thick. I can’t see anything but I can hear the scissors clearly. First a click, then crunch, crunch, crunch. The scissors are labouring away; the darkness persists.

Suddenly, I see a grey line. It runs from top to bottom in the middle of the blackness in the corner. And as the scissors cut, the grey line gets longer. Someone’s cutting a hole in the dark. The darkness is black but it’s backed with grey. The line curves and finally acquires a shape. It isn’t a door; it’s a tall, slim figure cutting itself out. It is the hole. The hole has detached itself from the dark and is now starting to move.

Terror strikes my chest. I gasp for air. There is not the slightest sound. Blood throbs in my ears; all I hear is the hammering of my own blood.

In books, ghosts are white, but this ghost is black. Sheer, cut-out darkness. And as it walks, the darkness closes up behind it.

It’s holding a pair of scissors and it looks like Mum. As soon as I recognize Mum, I stop trying to shout. It’s Mum. After all these years, Mum has come back as a ghost.

The ghost has got Mum’s hair and Mum’s tall body. It’s got its head intact. Its fingers are bony and the smoking hand is raised in that familiar way, though it isn’t holding a cigarette right now but a pair of scissors. Its knee clicks in a familiar way. It’s Mum, only it’s empty. It’s Mum who’s been taken away, a hole left by Mum in my bedroom.

The ghost walks to the end of my bed, and my toes feel chilly. As if the dark were sucking me towards my toes, as if my toes were going to break off soon. And perhaps they will, because now the ghost is raising its scissors. They’re the downstairs nail scissors, which I use to cut my toenails, only now they’ve grown to the size of kitchen scissors. I start kicking the quilt and shouting. And suddenly my lungs pop open, like a bottle, and my voice comes back. The darkness sparkles and I’m a kicking, screaming mess of blanket.

‘Saara, Saara, Saara.’ Dad repeats my name as he strides up the stairs.

‘Stop kicking. Open your eyes.’

‘My eyes are open!’ I shout with my eyes shut.

‘You must have had a nightmare,’ Dad says soothingly. He strokes the blanket on top of my head.

I daren’t open my eyes.

‘What kind of dream were you having?’ Dad asks.