The wooden door creaks open as I draw near. Before me is a flight of narrow stone steps leading upwards. I climb them, my legs heavy with dread, and enter a circular room with lots of windows. I can’t see much at first, but then I make them out: nine grey shapes, each as big as a person, lying in a circle on the cement floor. I step forward and something hard crunches under my feet. The ground is littered with black feathers.

I approach the nearest grey shape and crouch down. Each one is a human-sized chrysalis. The outside husk lies open; whatever was inside has flown away. I walk around the circle and come to one that’s still intact. Beneath the rough papery casing is a network of softly glowing, pulsating arteries – an organic, beating thing of sinew and flesh. Inside is the shadowy face of a woman, her eyes shut.

Chanting fills the room. At first it’s an ominous whisper muttered over and over, and then it grows louder, rising up in a vortex of sound until it becomes one with the howl of the wind.

Eko eko azarak. Eko eko zomelak. Eko eko azarak.

I don’t understand the words but I feel their power. The chant repeats over and over, invading every corner of my mind.

I have to wake her. Wake her … I have to wake before it’s too late.

I open my eyes with a start, the remnants of the dream clinging to me like cobwebs.

‘You OK? You were making some strange noises.’

Tom’s voice snaps me back to the present and I straighten up and wipe my face.

‘Yeah, it was just a dream.’ Only it didn’t feel like that. It felt like a memory of somewhere I’ve visited often. ‘How long was I asleep for?’

‘Over an hour.’ He glances at me and grins. ‘I didn’t know you talked in your sleep.’

‘How would you? I’ve never slept on the job.’

‘True.’ He laughs.

I massage my temples, wanting to remember the details of the dream yet feeling apprehensive at the same time. I know I heard chanting, but I can’t recall the words. Could I have spoken them? I eye him warily, aware that this might be another one of his wind-ups.

‘So go on. What did I say?’

‘It was weird. You kept muttering the same thing over and over.’

‘Yes, but what did I actually say?’ It comes out sharper than I intended and I fiddle with my nose stud, suddenly self-conscious. I don’t know why it matters to me, but it does.

He shoots me a quizzical look. ‘I dunno, Ivy. It was gibberish. It sounded like echo echo, azzer something.’

‘Eko eko azarak. Eko eko zomelak.’ The words fly out of my mouth unbidden.

‘Yeah, that’s it. What does it mean?’

‘I don’t know. Nothing.’

The phrase repeats over and over in my mind. The words sound like they’re made up and yet I know them. Not just from the dream. I know the cadence of the chant in the same way I know the curves and hollows of my body; the rhythm as natural to me as breathing, the words as familiar as my own name.