Something huge strides past the building, the bottom part of a spindly leg, then there’s a clattering above us. Panic rises inside me. I have to get out of here. I try to get up, but the witches rush forward and hold me down. Fighting them off, I clamber across the bed and crawl to the floor on my hands and knees. I can’t stand this. I need to get away. I need to breathe.

The women follow me, Mazoe and Glitonea rubbing my shoulders as I arch my back and drag in a lungful of air. Morgan crawls towards me and takes my cheeks between her hands. Looking into my face, she inhales deeply and then blows out a long exhale. A transparent film races across her eyeballs and I glance at the faces around me, surprised to see the others breathing in time with her, their eyes flickering in the same strange way.

‘What made the demon form?’ she asks again.

I hold her gaze, the tightness in my chest easing a little as my breathing slows. There must be something I’m missing, some connection. And then I remember how the shadows retreated from my bed when I told Tom how I was feeling. They became physical when I refused to tell him why I was upset.

‘I argued with Tom.’

‘What about?’

‘I was talking to him about my best friend, about how I fell out with her and how she left me …’ My voice wavers and I stop speaking. It’s not just that I feel betrayed by Tom and upset about Katie. There’s a hard knot of pain inside me, a knot pulled so tight I don’t think anyone will ever be able to get their fingers inside to prise it apart. All my life, I’ve been on my own. I’ve never had a proper home, a proper childhood. The one friend I had, I lost.

I glance about me and the creatures retreat, the hand withdrawing from the window. Holding my chest, I keep speaking. ‘I trusted him. I shouldn’t have told him how I feel.’

Morgan touches her chest in anguished sympathy and the others do the same. I rub my temples, my head pounding with the need to cry, and the women rub the sides of their heads. At first I think they’re mimicking me, but it’s not that. They’re sharing my emotion, feeling what I feel. They smile at me sadly and I’m overcome with a sense of how much they love me; whatever they’re doing, I know they’re trying to help. A tear rolls down my cheek and I wipe it roughly away. The effort of not crying is suffocating. I feel as if my face is covered with thick papery casing and I can’t breathe.

Morgan takes my face in her hands again, her fingers gently stroking my cheeks.