The room goes blissfully quiet for several long minutes and then he whispers, ‘Did you hear that?’

I sit up in bed, my heart pounding. ‘No. What?’

‘A scraping noise … oh, wait, it was just you putting up another row of bricks.’

I throw myself back down with a sigh. ‘Go to sleep, Tom.’

‘Goodnight, Breeze Block.’

Pulling up the covers, I turn over and curl into a ball. The sound of waves fills the room and a few minutes later there’s a different noise: gentle snoring. I listen to Tom for a while and then my own breathing slows and becomes heavy. Sleep comes swiftly after that, closing around me like a cocoon, and I’m held in blackness for a long time. And then I’m somewhere else – taken to a place shrouded in mist.

The vapour pulls apart to reveal a gleaming tower: the lighthouse. I push open the door and climb the stone steps. At the top is a familiar room, its floor littered with black feathers. Nine long grey chrysalides lie on the ground in a circle, the bottom of each touching at the centre. I kneel before the one closed chrysalis and touch its thick papery casing, its surface obscuring a network of glowing arteries. Hidden inside is the face of a woman.

Chanting fills the room, at first just a whisper.

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

I stare around but I can’t see where the noise is coming from. It builds louder and louder, until I have to cover my ears with my hands. I look at the woman’s sleeping face and somehow I know I have to set her free.

I claw at the chrysalis, pull and rip at the casing. I have to wake her. She has to wake before it’s too late. I tear through layer after layer of the tough, papery material and then connect with something else – living tissue. Shoving my hands deeper, I push and pull at stretchy membrane, my fingers slippery with blood, but it’s not enough.

I’m suffocating, overcome with panic that I can’t breathe. My lungs are burning. I have to wake her … I need to … Gasping for air, I tear through a layer of skin and scream. The woman inside is me.

13

My eyes snap open and I take a sharp breath. A cloying sense of wrongness clings to my thoughts like the wrinkled skin on hot milk. The memory of the dream is right there, just beneath the surface, yet I can’t break through to reach it. There was something I had to do, something important …

Go back to sleep, Ivy. It was just a dream.

The lamps have guttered out and the only illumination is the red glow of the lighthouse, seeping through the curtains like blood through a bandage. I pick up my phone from the bedside table, relieved to see it still has charge. Three forty-five. Great.

I stare at the ceiling, my eyes fixed on a patch of peeling paintwork, while I think about the events of yesterday evening. Even if witches exist, why would they be interested in me? The wind whines and moans outside and I think about the whispered voice I heard behind the door. It sounded urgent, desperate even.