The crystal-gazer was happy enough to give me her place for the price of a guinea: I sat in the shadows with a veil across my face and Effie didn’t suspect a thing. She was so sensitive to my thoughts that I didn’t even have to put her to sleep: she did it herself…but even so, it was not until she began to speak to me in my daughter’s voice that I truly realized how unique, how precious she could be to me. If she could bring back the voice so clearly, what else might she be capable of? My head was spinning with the possibilities: to see my little girl again, to touch her…why not? Believe me, I wished Effie no harm, but her reaction on being jolted out of her trance astonished even me. The girl was too precious to lose; I couldn’t let her go.

Sure enough, before I had to delve too far, she gave me the name I wanted. Henry Chester, the Hermit, the murderer of my daughter…

I was past the age now of wanting to scream my rebellion on the scaffold. If there was to be a sacrifice, this time it would not be me.

It was an accident, I tell you. I never meant to kill her. I was going to tell you about it, but it was so long ago…

Her mother always made me feel uneasy: she was too solid. I felt dwarfed by her, fascinated and repelled by the abundance of her. She seemed barely human: as if beneath her rosy skin I should find, not the blood and muscle of an ordinary woman but some strange compound of black earth and granite, like an Egyptian idol with agate eyes. Her scent was a corrupt sweetness, like a million flyblown roses; a lingering, occult caress from all the secret places of her woman’s body to the shameful longings of my heart. And that woman had a daughter!

I saw her peering out at me through the banisters. Eyes as green as glass fixed me in the half-light from the landing and, as my own gaze focused upon her, she gave a little laugh and jumped to her feet, ready to disappear up the stairs if I moved. She was barefoot and the light outlined her body through the fabric of her nightdress. She had none of her mother’s fearful solidity: the little changeling was almost insubstantial, with straight black hair falling over a hungry, pointed face…and yet, there was a resemblance. Something in the eyes, maybe, or in the fluid grace of her movements: so might golden Ceres have been mirrored in pale Persephone.

I asked her name.

She tilted her head at me; her eyes filled with lights. ‘I’m not supposed to tell.’ The Cornish accent was light, almost imperceptible, like her mother’s, a soft blurring of the syllables.

‘Why not?’

‘I shouldn’t be here. I promised.’ If it had not been for her smile and the way her body stood out against the light I might have believed in her innocence, but I knew that, standing there above me, like a parody of Juliet on the balcony, whatever her age she was her mother’s creature, conceived in sin and bred to pray upon sinners like myself. I could almost smell her perfume from where I stood: a troubling, deceitful combination, like amber and swamp water.

‘I promised,’ she repeated, drawing away from the banister. ‘I have to go.’

‘Wait!’ I could not control my response. Hastily I began to climb the stairs, sweat prickling my temples. ‘Don’t go. I won’t tell. Look’-fumbling in my pockets-‘I’ll give you some chocolate.’

She hesitated, then reached out her hand for the sweet, which she unwrapped immediately and began to eat. Pushing my advantage, I smiled and put my hand on her shoulder.

‘Come now,’ I said kindly. ‘I’ll take you back to your room and tell you a story.’

She nodded solemnly at this and ran quietly up the stairs in front of me, her bare feet like white moths in the darkness. There was nothing I could do but follow.

Her room was tucked away under the eaves of the house, and she jumped on to the bed, legs tucked beneath her, and pulled the bedspread around her. She had finished the chocolate and I watched as she licked her fingers clean in a gesture so potent that my knees almost gave way beneath me.

‘What about my story?’ she asked pertly.

‘Later.’

‘Why not now?’

‘Later!’

The perfume was overwhelming now. She shook it from her hair like a fall of flowers, and in the midst of it I detected the rank smell which might have been my own lust.

I could bear it no longer. I stepped forwards and seized her in my arms and buried my face in her, drowning in her. My legs gave way and I fell with her on to the bed, holding on to her in desperation. For an instant she seemed awesomely powerful, her eyes widening like ripples into the darkness, her open mouth screaming silent curses. She began to struggle and kick, her hair like a flight of black bats fanning out over my face, smothering me with its weight. At that moment, with her lithe, serpentine body coiling against mine, her hair in my mouth and the sickly smell of chocolate in my nostrils, I was certain she was going to kill me.

There was a rushing in my ears and a terrible panic seized hold of me. I began to scream aloud in terror and disgust. I was the sacrifice, she the granite death-goddess gasping for my blood. With the last of my sanity I grabbed at her throat and tightened the grasp as hard as I could…the little witch fought like a demon, screaming and biting, but I found that my strength had returned…

God was with me then: if only I had had the courage to leave the house and never return, perhaps He would not have turned His face away from me…but even in the trembling aftermath of that dreadful battle I felt a kind of unholy excitement, a triumph, as if, instead of quelling the rising tide of lust within me, I had simply opened up the door to a lust of a different kind, one which could never entirely be slaked.

I have little recollection of returning to Cromwell Square: it was almost daylight and in a few hours the servants would be about, but Henry was not yet home. I was able to let myself into the house, to undress by myself and to slip into bed. I slept a little, but I had to take more laudanum to combat the evil dreams which threatened my sleep. I could no longer distinguish between reality and imagination so that I wondered whether or not I had dreamed the events I thought had taken place in Crook Street…Had I spoken to Henry? Had Fanny come to me as I slept? At about six o’clock I fell into a deep sleep, and I awoke two hours later when Tabby came in with my chocolate. My head ached dreadfully, I was feverish and, although I tried to show a cheerful face, Tabby guessed immediately that something was amiss.

‘Why, Mrs Chester, you don’t look well at all!’ she observed, pulling the curtains open and drawing closer to the bedside. ‘You’re as pale as can be!’

‘No, Tabby,’ I protested, ‘simply a little tired. I’ll be all right presently.’

‘I’ll tell Mr Chester you’re not well, ma’am,’ said Tabby firmly.

‘No!’ I hastily softened my tone: it would not do for her to sense my panic. ‘No. That won’t be necessary.’

She looked doubtful. ‘Maybe you’d like a drop of laudanum, ma’am?’ I shook my head.

‘Please, no. It’s only a little headache. I’ll be better for this excellent chocolate.’ I forced myself to sip it, even though it was scalding hot, and I smiled reassuringly. ‘Thank you, Tabby, you can go now.’

She left the room with some reluctance, looking over her shoulder as she went, and I told myself that I could not count on her to keep my illness a secret from Henry. Sure enough, ten minutes later he came into the room with a glass and the laudanum bottle.

‘Tabby tells me you won’t take your medicine,’ he said. His eyes flicked to where Tizzy was sitting on my bed, and his mouth twisted sourly. ‘I’ve told you before that I don’t like that cat in your room at night. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was what was causing your illnesses.’