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.

C-r-e-a-k.

My body tenses. It’s just my mum going to the bathroom; any moment now I will hear the groan of the stairs. But I don’t. A minute passes and then there’s another soft creak. What’s she doing? I push myself up in bed, but all I hear is the crash of waves and the swish of blood in my ears.

And then I hear the noise I’ve been dreading: a scraping sound, as if someone is dragging their fingernails down the door. Maybe my mum’s doing some kind of protection spell. But why do it in the middle of the night? I swing my legs out of bed. Whoever’s there, I won’t be made to feel scared. I glance over at the snoring lump, deciding not to wake him. He was freaked out enough last time, and I don’t need a boy to hide behind. I’m capable of checking out the hallway myself.

I switch on the torch of my phone then tiptoe across the room and pause at the door. Should I ease it gently, or … Oh, to hell with this. I yank it open and something blurs at the edge of my vision: a figure with long hair.