‘Rose?’ I could hear a voice call.

‘Yes, Mammy,’ she said, scrambling to get to her feet, her voice trembling. ‘I’m coming, Mammy.’ She gave the man one last look, then ran down the hall to the television-room door.

The man stepped into the doorway and I prepared myself but when I saw him, I screamed. Beneath long scrawny hair, a face which was so distorted stared back at me. One side of the face looked as though it had melted and had been pulled at and the skin had been put back in the wrong place. He quickly lifted a hand to his hair and tried to cover his face. He was wearing a long sleeve but as he lifted his hand to his face it revealed a stump. His left side was completely burned, his shoulder drooped downward as though it were candlewax sliding down the side of the left-hand side of his body. His eyes were big and blue, one was perfectly framed against soft smooth skin, the other was pulled down so much that it appeared to leap from its socket, revealing the white of the eye and all that was beneath. He started to come towards me and I began to cry.

I heard the back door open and the wind whooshed in. I heard steps on the plastic covering and the man Rosaleen had called Laurie turned in fright.

‘Leave her alone!’ I heard Weseley shout, and Laurie raised his hands in the air, looking shocked, sad, shaken. Then Weseley came in and saw me. I must have looked a mess because his face changed, anger took over, and he pushed Laurie up against the wall, his hand around his neck.

‘What did you do to her?’ he growled in his face.

‘Leave him,’ I heard myself say, but, I couldn’t get sounds out.

‘Tamara, get out of there,’ Weseley said, his face red, the veins throbbing in his neck from the effort it was taking to hold him off.

I don’t know how but I finally stood up, grabbing the diary, and pushed myself forward. I managed to lay a hand on Weseley to stop him. He let go of Laurie, grabbed me and pulled me from the room, pushed Laurie inside, slammed the door and locked it. He took the key and put it in his pocket, while I heard the man shouting to let him out.

Just as I reached the end of the passageway, Rosaleen swung herself round the corner to block me. She’d obviously left through the front door. She reached out and grabbed my arm, but I moved just within her grasp and her nails dug into my skin as she pinched me and tried to hold on. I screamed.

‘Follow me,’ Weseley said, and turned and ran.

I was running but was abruptly jerked backward, feeling a pain in my neck as Rosaleen grabbed my hair and tried to pull me back. I elbowed her hard in the stomach and she released me. Despite her behaviour to me over the past hour I still felt bad and stopped to see if she was okay. She was doubled over, winded.

‘Tamara, come on!’ Weseley shouted.

But I couldn’t. This was ridiculous. I didn’t understand why we were fighting, why she had turned on me. I had to see if she was all right. As I came near her, she looked up, pulled back her right arm and slapped me hard across the face. I felt the sting long after her hand left my face. Weseley tugged on me and I had no choice but to run.

We ran down the back garden and past the workshed which separated domestic life from the secret field of glass. Once in the field I realised how much the wind had picked up. It was blustery now and my hair was billowing around my face wildly, sometimes blinding me, sometimes stuffing my mouth with a lock of hair. Weseley was squeezing one of my hands so tightly I needed the other to balance myself as we ran across the lumpy grass, so I couldn’t move the hair from my face. The glass was swinging violently in the wind, back and forth but with no rhythm so it was hard to judge whether it was going to come flying at our faces as we darted past. It was difficult to dodge and an effort to avoid being scraped by its jagged points.

I held on tightly to Weseley’s hand and I just remember thinking, don’t let go, don’t ever let go. Every now and then he turned round to make sure I was still there, although his hand was wrapped so tightly around mine it was crushing my fingers. I saw the worry in his face, the panic in his eyes. We were in this together and I had never been so grateful to have such a friend. We ducked under lines of glass mobiles and made our way to the edge of the garden. Weseley began to figure out a way we could get over the wall. I stood there keeping watch, feeling my arms stinging as the scrapes on my arms and possibly on my face started to bleed and the cold air blew on them. I kept watch for Rosaleen who quickly appeared at the workshed and was scanning the garden for us. Our eyes met. She surged forward.

Weseley moved quickly, gathering crates and concrete blocks, layering them up, building them up so that we could get over the wall. He stepped up and finally he could reach the top of the wall.

‘Right Tamara. I’ll lift you up.’

I put the diary down and he lifted me from the waist. I scrambled to pull myself to the top, my bare elbows scraping the concrete, my knees banging against the wall, but finally I was there. Weseley handed me the diary and I jumped in to the field on the other side. Pain shot though my ankles and up my legs as I landed. Weseley wasn’t far behind. He grabbed my hand again and we ran.

Across the road and straight into the gatehouse, I screamed for Arthur and Mum between heaving breaths. There was no answer, the house stared back silently at us, with its empty rooms, the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall the only response. We both ran up and downstairs, flinging open doors, shouting into every eave. I had been worried before that, then I started to panic. I sat on my bed, the diary in my arms, not knowing what to do. Then, as I hugged it tightly and started to cry, it became clear.

I opened the diary. Slowly but surely the burned pages began to uncurl right before my eyes, unfolding and lengthening, and words no longer neatly looped and lined appeared in jagged and messy scrawls as though written in blind panic.

‘Weseley,’ I called.

‘Yes!’ he shouted up the stairs.

‘We have to go,’ I shouted.

‘Where?’ he yelled. ‘We should call the garda? What do you think? Who was that guy? My God, did you see his face?’ I could hear the adrenaline pumping through his words.

I stood up quickly. Too quickly. All the blood rushed to my head and I felt dizzy. Black spots formed before my eyes and I tried to keep walking, hoping they’d eventually disappear. I made my way out to the hall, holding on to the wall, trying to take deep breaths. The pulse in my forehead beat an insane rhythm, my skin felt hot and clammy.

‘Tamara, what’s wrong?’ was all I heard.

I felt the book fall from my hand and hit the ground with a thud. After that-nothing.

I woke up to find myself staring at a painting of Mary, smiling down upon me in a baby-blue-coloured veil. Her thin lips smiling and telling me it was all going to be okay, her hands held out and open as though giving me some invisible gift. Then I remembered what had happened in the bungalow and I sat up with a start. My head felt like it was being crushed, as though the atmosphere was pushing down on me.

‘Ow,’ I groaned.

‘Hush, Tamara, you must lie down. Slow down now,’ Sister Ignatius said calmly, taking my hand in hers and placing another on my shoulder to coax me gently back down.

‘My head,’ I croaked, lying back down and taking in her face.

‘That’s a nasty bang you got,’ she said, taking a cloth dipping it in a dish and carefully dabbing at my skin above my eye.

It stung and I tensed.

‘Weseley,’ I panicked, looking around, and pushing her hand away from me. ‘Where is he?’