I step back, my heart racing, and my phone slips from my hand. I try to grab it and it turns over in my fingers, the light momentarily blinding me. Cursing, I fumble and catch it just before it hits the floor. The torch has gone out and I switch it back on. Holding the phone out before me, I make my way along the landing. My breath quickens as I imagine what might be lurking in the darkness, but there’s no witch with cloudy white eyes and tangled black hair standing in the shadows. There’s no one at all.

Yet someone was here just now. I need to warn my mum. I walk to her door and then stop. What if it was her? She could have darted back into her room when I dropped my phone. I don’t think she’d frighten me just to make me believe her stories about witches, but what if Tom’s right? There’s only one way to be sure: I need to go downstairs and check the house.

No, Ivy. You need to stop coming up with stupid ideas and get into bed.

I hurry back into the bedroom and jump under the covers, relieved to hear Tom still snoring. Whatever’s out there can stay out there. Pulling the sleeping bag over my head, I curl up and shut my eyes. Usually when I can’t sleep, my brain likes to entertain me with reruns of my most embarrassing moments. Right now I’d gladly watch a highlights reel of my worst fails, but my mind has other ideas. It wants to convince me that someone is standing over my bed. Only it’s not one person; something tells me there’s a group of them.

My breath comes fast under the covers, the air moist and stinking of mould. I know there are people standing around me. I can sense their presence, feel the weight of their stare in the pinprick crawl of my skin. I imagine eight scrawny women with impossibly long arms grinning down at me. Only I’m not imagining it. I can hear the raspy catch of their breath.

No, witches aren’t real. They don’t exist. It must be Tom’s snoring, or the muffled crash of waves. Keeping the covers clamped over my head, I tell myself that I’ve been silly to believe my mum’s stories. Witches aren’t real. I repeat the thought over and over until my brain stumbles over the words and I fall into a shallow sleep potholed with nightmares.

When I open my eyes, daylight is streaming through the window and Tom is sitting on the bed opposite, looking at me intently. I wince and shield my eyes. His face is preferable to that of a witch, but it’s still unsettling to wake up and see someone staring at you.