Bert sat on the floor until his bottom went numb. The crystal ball was cheap rubbish, and he wiped away his fingerprints before returning it to the box. Mother would send the presents back when the whim suited her anyway. He didn’t like the ouija board. The second he placed the plinth on the wood he knew it was a doorway into something too dark for him to handle. What if his brother started talking to him through it? What if Callum said that he was going to hell for making him fall from that tree? His mother told him about hell once, a long time ago, when she used to go to church, but Bert’s harsh life lessons demonstrated that the darkness of hell was not reserved for the afterlife. It was with him every minute of every day.

He turned his attention back to the cards, feeling a tingle shoot up his finger as he touched the deck. It brought with it a hint of the power lying behind the shop-coated smell. A flutter of excitement rose, as he clumsily thumbed the pictures. Death, temperance, and judgment, the meaning of each card whispered softly into his senses. Bert smiled as he brought them to his nose, inhaling their power. The empty feeling he had been carrying evaporated as he basked in their potency.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The itch. The damned itch! Jennifer squirmed as she raked her skin with long yellow nails, leaving ragged blood-seeped tracks in their wake. She looked down at her shaking hands, scaly and withered, gasping as they touched her bristled face.

‘No,’ she said, ‘get away from me, no!’

A light flickered on and Jennifer recoiled from the hand on her shoulder.

‘Hey, hey, it’s me, Will. You’re dreaming.’

She blinked, looking left to right. ‘Mmm? Where am I?’

Will murmured softly. ‘Shhh, it’s OK, it’s just a bad dream.’

Jennifer mumbled something incoherent before lying back down. Slowly her heartbeat returned to a normal rhythm as she surrendered to sleep.

Will pressed his lips against her forehead before turning to face the wall.

Easing herself into the warmth of his back, Jennifer snaked her hand around his waist, and he drew it up into the groove of his chest, drawing her close to banish the nightmares.

[#]

‘You’re late, I didn’t think you were coming,’ Amy said, pulling open the door. Her usual weekly visit had been delayed by a late afternoon lie-in at Will’s, and a shared shower after dinner. Jennifer grinned sheepishly as she followed her sister inside, hopping on one of the barstools next to the compact breakfast bar. The sense of betrayal diminished since her father’s visit, and a night spent with Will had eased the loneliness nesting in her heart. Her sister seemed buoyant, which suggested it had gone well. Nevertheless, Jennifer was not going to mention her father unless Amy brought him up first.

Six sterilised baby bottles were lined up in a row next to an open tin of milk powder, and Amy completed the routine of mixing, shaking and storing the feeds before wiping down the counter and making two cups of tea. Jennifer watched with admiration as Amy worked, cleaning the kitchen, listening to the baby monitor, and telling Joshua to go to bed. She thought of their own childhood; when they were free to do what they wanted until the pubs closed. Then their father came home stinking of beer, and Jennifer would creep down in her nightie to lock the front door behind him. On a good night, he’d be lying comatose on the sofa, and Jennifer would prise the empty beer can from his grasp before covering him with a blanket. On a bad night, he’d bring back company. Narrow-eyed drunks who would raid her food supplies and leer as she darted back upstairs and locked her bedroom door.

Jennifer pulled herself away from the past and drew her attention back to her sister. Her home was full of comforting things, a smaller version of their aunt Laura’s, the woman who saved them from a life in care. Wicker love hearts hanging from cupboard handles, wall art advocating love, life, and laughter, knitted tea cosies shaped like owls, with the smell of freshly baked cookies wafting from the oven. It transported her sister to a better place, a time of love and security. Jennifer thought of her bleached black and white home and wondered what it said about her.

Soon the pair of them were chatting about the kids, family life, and a censored version of life in the police force. Jennifer laughed as Joshua ran up the stairs in his Spider-Man pyjamas, expending his limitless amounts of energy before bed.

‘I got his test results back today,’ Amy said, lightly stirring the tea before pushing it across the marble counter.

Jennifer took the cup, patterned with purple and yellow splodges. She had a similar one, which looked so out of place in her sterile kitchen cupboard – a gift from Joshua after one of his nursery craft sessions. Her eyes flickered over the fridge door, adorned with colourful magnets holding up his various paintings and star-emblazoned awards. There was nothing wrong with her beloved nephew, but in a world obsessed with labels he would be pressured to shed his identity and conform.

‘What did they come up with?’

Amy shrugged. ‘He’s perfectly healthy. No ADHD, no autism, nothing. Just a busy boy with an overactive imagination.’

‘Good,’ Jennifer said, trying hard not to interfere. Her sister began to ramble on about her recent membership to the Women’s Institute, and Jennifer’s thoughts drifted to Will as she stared dreamily into her cup of tea.

‘You seem different tonight, sis, any news?’ Amy said, delivering the words with a knowing smile.

Jennifer shrugged innocently. ‘No, same old, same old, lots of work, you know how it is.’

Amy leaned forward, her chin resting on the palm of her hand. ‘So you’ve not been shagging anyone? It’s just that you stink of sex.’

Jennifer’s eyes widened at the accusation. ‘Amy! What sort of a thing is that to say?’

‘The sort of thing you say when your sister’s been holding out. Now spill. I know you’ve been seeing someone.’

‘I’ve not …’

Amy chuckled, sliding her mobile phone across the counter and pressing the button to display a text. ‘Then why did you send this text an hour before you got here?’

Jennifer flushed as her eyes crept over the text. See you later sexy xxx. Amy was her last phone contact, so the text must have been sent to her instead of Will. Seconds passed, and Jennifer’s mouth gaped open with very little coming out. There was no point in trying to wriggle out of it; Amy could read her like a book.

‘It’s early days, I wasn’t going to say anything yet.’

Amy wagged her finger. ‘I’m your sister, you shouldn’t be holding out on me. It’s the guy that stayed over when you were in hospital, isn’t it?’

Jennifer nodded. ‘We’ve only just got together this weekend. It’s a bit awkward with work so we weren’t going to let on just yet.’

‘Hmm,’ Amy said, raising her cup to finish her tea. ‘He’s a bit scruffy, but you like them rough and ready, don’t you?’

Jennifer was about to leap to Will’s defence, when her sister tittered from behind her cup. ‘Relax, I’m only joking. You have got it bad, haven’t you?’

Jennifer’s dimples came into life as she beamed a smile. Talking about boyfriends with her sister gave her a warm glow inside. ‘He’s lovely. He comes from a very close family.’

‘Does he know about our band of misfits?’ Amy said.

Jennifer’s smile faltered, but not long enough for Amy to notice. ‘Yep, and he still wants to know me. Who’d believe it?’

‘Well I wouldn’t kick him out of bed for farting,’ Amy grinned.

Jennifer swallowed the last of her tea, the tang of unstirred sugar hitting the back of her throat. She felt more like a mother to her sister, and sex wasn’t something she was comfortable discussing with her.