‘No, child. She needs her peace.’

I’m not a child. I’m not a child. I’m not a child.

‘She has plenty of peace all day. It would be a good idea for her to see people.’

‘I’m sure she’d rather have her own space.’

‘What makes you think that?’

Rosaleen ignored me and carried the tray upstairs. For one minute Arthur and I would be alone. As if reading my thoughts she came back to the kitchen. She looked at Arthur.

‘Arthur, would you mind getting a bottle of water from the garage. Tamara doesn’t like the tap.’

‘Oh, no, I don’t mind. I’d rather drink from the tap,’ I said quickly, stopping Arthur from getting to his feet.

‘No, it’s no bother. Go on, Arthur.’

He stood again.

‘I don’t want it,’ I said firmly.

‘If she doesn’t want it, Rosaleen…’ Arthur said so quietly I could barely make out his words.

She looked from him to me and then legged it up the stairs. I had a feeling it would be her fastest trip ever.

Arthur and I sat in an initial silence. I spoke quickly.

‘Arthur, we have to do something about Mum. It’s not normal.’

‘None of what she’s been through is normal. I’m sure she’d rather eat alone.’

‘What?’ I threw my hands up. ‘What is it with you two? Why are you so obsessed with locking her away on her own?’

‘Nobody wants to lock her away.’

‘Why don’t you go talk to her?’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, you. You’re her brother, I’m sure there’s stuff that you can talk about that will bring her back to us.’

He covered his mouth with his hand, looked away from me.

‘Arthur, you have to talk to her. She needs her family.’

‘Tamara, stop it,’ he hissed, and I was taken aback.

He looked hurt for a moment. A deep sadness flicked through his eyes. Then, as though he’d built up some sort of courage, he quickly looked to the door of the kitchen and then back to me. He leaned in towards me, opened his mouth, his voice was hushed. ‘Tamara, listen-’

‘Now, there we are. She’s in great form.’ Rosaleen said, out of breath, rushing back in with her little-boy walk. Arthur studied her all the way in and to her seat.

‘What?’ I asked Arthur, on the edge of my seat. What was he about to tell me?

Rosaleen’s head turned like an antenna finding a signal.

‘What’s that you’re talking about?’

For once it seemed Arthur’s snot-snort came in handy. It was enough of a response for Rosaleen.

‘Dig in,’ she said perkily, fussing about with serving spoons and bowls of vegetables.

It took Arthur a while to begin. He didn’t eat much.

That night I sat staring at the diary for hours. I kept it open on my lap, waiting for the moment the words would arrive. I couldn’t even last until midnight because when I woke up at one a.m., the diary was still open on my lap, every single line filled in my handwriting. Gone was yesterday’s forecast and instead was another entry, a different entry for tomorrow.

Sunday, 5 July

I shouldn’t have told Weseley about Dad.

I read that sentence a few more times. Who on earth was Weseley?

I suppose it was inevitable I would dream the dream I dreamed that night.

As I lay in bed caught in the irony of forcing myself to drift away, my mind went over and over the diary entry I had read in the castle before it had cleared and made way for the next one. Thankfully, I had read it so many times before the words disappeared and were replaced by a new entry that I knew almost every line off by heart. Everything that I’d read had come true that day. I wondered if tomorrow would yield the same supernatural results, if it would all somehow be revealed as somebody’s cruel idea of a joke, or if Sister Ignatius was right and the late-night scribbles of a sleepwalker would reveal themselves to be mere inconsequential babble.

I had heard about things people did when they were asleep. Sleep epilepsy, carrying out weird sexual acts, cleaning or even homicidal somnambulism, which is sleepwalking murder. There were a few famous cases where people committed murders and claimed to be sleepwalking. Two of the murderers were acquitted and ordered to sleep alone with their doors locked. I don’t know if that was one of the documentaries Mae watched or if it was an episode of Perry Mason called ‘The Case of the Sleepwalker’s Niece’ that educated me on that. Anyway, if all of those things were possible, then I supposed it was also possible that I could have written my diary in my sleep and, while I was writing it, predicted the future.

I believed more in the homicidal somnambulism defence.

Knowing the dream that I was going to have-well, according to the Tamara of Tomorrow-my mind tried to think of ways to change the dream, of ways to stop Dad from becoming my English teacher and keep him around so that we could actually talk. I tried to think of a special code that only he would understand, which I could say to him and somehow summon him from the dead to communicate with me. I obsessed about it all so much, I inevitably dreamed about exactly what I’d written: about my dad, whose face morphed into that of my English teacher, and then my school moved to America but I couldn’t speak the language, then we lived on a boat. The only difference was that I was being repeatedly asked to sing by the students, some of whom were the cast of High School Musical, and when I tried to open my mouth no sound would come out because of the laryngitis. Nobody would believe me because I’d lied about it before.

The other difference, which felt far more disturbing, was that the boat that I lived on, the wooden Noah’s Ark style boat, was crammed full of people like millions of bees in a hive. Smoke kept drifting through the halls but nobody noticed except for me, and they kept on eating, stuffing their mouths over and over with food while seated at long banquet tables, which then felt like a Harry Potter film, and all the while the smoke filled the rooms. I was the only one who could see it, but nobody could hear me because the laryngitis had taken away my voice. Boy and Wolf come to mind.

You could say that the diary was right, or a more cynical mind would suggest that because I’d allowed my mind to obsess over the details of the already documented dream, I inevitably forced myself to dream the dream. But I did, as forecast, wake to the sound of Rosaleen dropping a pot on the floor with a yelp.

I threw the covers off and fell to the floor on my knees. Last night I had taken my own forecasting voice’s advice by hiding the diary under the floorboard. If Tamara of Tomorrow felt it was important then I was going to follow her advice. Who knew why she-or I-was going to such great lengths to hide silly hormonal thoughts? Maybe Rosaleen had gone snooping and she, or I, hadn’t written about it. The last few nights I’d taken to blocking the bedroom door with the wooden chair. It wouldn’t keep Rosaleen out but it would at least alert me to her presence. She hadn’t watched me sleep since the first night. As far as I knew.

I was sitting on the floor beside the bedroom door rereading last night’s entry again when I heard steps on the stairs. I looked through the keyhole and saw Rosaleen leading Mum back up the stairs. I almost jumped up and did a song and a dance when, after Mum’s door closed, Rosaleen knocked at mine.

‘Morning, Tamara. Is everything all right?’ she called from outside.

‘Eh, yes, thank you, Rosaleen. Did something happen downstairs?’

‘No, nothing. I just dropped a pot.’

The doorknob began to turn.

‘Em, don’t come in! I’m naked!’ I dived and pushed it closed.

‘Oh, okay…’ Talk of bodies, particularly naked ones, embarrassed her. ‘Breakfast will be ready in ten minutes.’