Ben turns on the light, just on low, and steps in after me. The door closes. My laptop, Ben’s plant swinging slightly from the hook, Baba Yaga, my painting, paints, the Sher-Gil propped up against the wall, the yoga mat where I’ve been sleeping, old underwear, the box of dried pig blood, Ben’s bloody towel, and the duck—the duck, still in the sink, its neck hanging over the edge, head pointing toward the floor—all light up. “Yeah, I don’t know about the Otter,” I say, and I move over to the table, with the painting and puppet and books on it, so Ben’s attention is drawn away from the sink. “I don’t know. The people are just arseholes . . . and Gideon, the director, he’s a bit of a creep.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. He’s . . . I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.” I think about telling him about how Gideon has been watching me, and about how he grabbed me on the stairs, but something stops me. It’s as though my human side is embarrassed; or maybe it’s that my demon side is embarrassed about not having been able to protect my human side properly. “But, yeah. It’s still experience, isn’t it?”

Ben frowns. “Well, I suppose you’ve got until Monday to decide,” he says, eventually.

Ben comes over to where I’m standing and crouches down to look at my painting. He doesn’t pick it up; he looks at it like it’s already hanging in a gallery, adjusting his height and his position, walking slightly to the right, then walking slightly to the left, to study it. He looks quite beautiful in this light; his hair and nose and forehead cast long shadows across his face, tinging his skin with gray.

“Did you paint this?” he asks, sounding surprised.

“Yeah.”

“It’s nice.”

“Nice?”

“No, I mean, like, it’s really good . . . I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m serious,” Ben says.

I nod. “Thanks.”

Ben sits down on the chair I painted Yaga in. I lean against the table next to him.

“So, my mum basically went into the hospice this week,” Ben says. He bites his lip. He faces the puppet Yaga, so it looks like he is actually talking to her.

“Oh my god, Ben,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head. “No, it’s okay. I just . . . I don’t know, I felt like telling you.”

Ben looks up at me and smiles. I smile back, but a half-smile-half-concerned-frown kind of smile. “If there’s anything I can do . . .” I say, and then my arm moves forward, toward Ben’s arm. My fingers touch his skin, and they kind of stroke it. I hadn’t planned to do this at all. It feels similar to when I stole the puppet and the books. I lean forward.

“Is this okay?” I hear myself saying.