Marie looked up and moved her hair back over her ear with a finger from where it was falling from her face to the page. The strands were long and black, and catching light from the tall window up to the top landing. The stairs were where she went to be by herself, but she let me sit beside her if I kept quiet. I wasn’t supposed to speak, but I could see she was coming out of the dreamy spell when only her lips moved, with the one finger she used to curl over and turn the pages.

‘The Count of Monte Cristo,’ she said. She was older than me, she knew how to read really well. I could see the words but they weren’t real like the streaks of light in her hair or the pale skin where the hair parted in the middle. Her wrists were long and skinny and so were her fingers, when she pointed at something on the page it felt like she was there and happy in what she was reading. I didn’t want her to stop. ‘Look and see if it’s clear.’

I scrambled down the stairs and looked over the banister to the hall and scrambled back up to tell her there was no one and she could run down without being seen.

I sat up on my own after she’d gone and thought about her. The dust was still swirling from where she’d stood to run back to her room at the bottom, the book under her arm and her hair swaying from the awkward way she stepped from side to side going down the stairs like she wasn’t used to how long her legs were growing. I could smell the soap she used and feel the warm patch on the carpet where she’d been sitting. The Count of Monte Cristo sounded like numbers and reading at the same time, I wanted to be able to see what she was thinking and what was making her face look so still and her breathing soft.