I put my wet sneakers beside the roaring fire and sat watching the flames as I hugged my knees. Sam was sitting on the sofa but hadn’t said anything. Every now and then he looked at me as if he were waiting for me to start. Waiting for me to say something. He folded his arms.

“So, are you going to tell me then? Why you’re so afraid of the dark?” he said.

I breathed slowly onto my knees but didn’t say anything.

His face had scrunched into a scowl. “Okay, you don’t want to talk. I get it. But what I want to know is how could your mum just let him come into her house and boss her around like that? What was wrong with her?”

“I know … I know how it sounds. It sounds like Mum let him walk all over her, but it wasn’t like that at all. Gary controlled things without you even realizing he was doing it. I never once heard him shout. He never tried to hurt us or anything. It was as if it was all going on like a rage in his head. Sometimes … Sometimes you could see it behind his eyes.”

The room was silent apart from the crackling of the fire. “And the dark?”

I sighed. “Like I said, Gary was clever. We didn’t really notice what he was doing to start with.”

Sam leaned forward and rested his chin on his hand as he listened. And then I told him. I told him why I was so terrified of the dark.

“We were all sitting at the dinner table one evening when the light bulb above us went pop. Mum put her knife and fork down to go and get a new one from under the sink, but Gary put his hand on her arm.

“‘Leave it, Fiona,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it after dinner.’

“I leaned back on my chair to look out the window. It was getting dark, but the hallway light was on and we could still see what we were eating. Gary chatted about a computer problem he was trying to sort out at work, and then Mum tried to join in and told him about our old laptop that had stopped working because it had a disease. I didn’t know why she said it; it was the stupidest thing she’d ever said.

“‘Virus, Mum. It’s called a virus,’ I said, hoping that Gary would stop laughing in that strange way of his.

“‘You’re such a silly-billy, aren’t you, Fiona? That’s what I love about you,’ he said, as he patted her arm.

“Gary didn’t replace the bulb after dinner, so Mum changed it herself after he’d gone to bed. The next morning when I came down for breakfast, Mum and Gary were in the kitchen talking.

“‘But I don’t understand it,’ she said, ‘I changed the bulb last night. Has it definitely blown again? We’ve never had any problems with that light before.’

“I hovered in the kitchen while Mum searched under the sink for another bulb.

“‘Don’t touch it now, Fiona. It might not be safe. I’ll take a look at the fitting later and see why it keeps going.’

“Mum picked up her cell phone and began to text someone. ‘I’ll see if Laura’s husband can pop over and take a look. He’s an electrician. He won’t mind.’

“Gary walked up to her and calmly took her cell phone out of her hand and slid it into his back pocket.

“‘There’s no need for that. We don’t need this Laura’s husband bothering us, do we? You’ve got me here now.’

“He kissed Mum’s forehead and tapped me on the head as he went into the living room.

“As far as I know, that was the last time she saw her cell phone. She told me she’d accidentally dropped it and was going to get another, but she never seemed to get around to it. I suspect he never gave it back to her. We didn’t have a light in the dining room for a few weeks, and then he said the living room bulb had gone.”

My throat caught.

“He said … He said that another bulb had blown and until he’d looked at the wiring we shouldn’t switch any of the lights on.”

Sam gasped. “What, ever? In the whole house?”

I nodded.

“He’d been living with us for a nearly a year then. Like I said, it all happened slowly.”

I suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to cry, and I took a deep breath to stop myself.

“Mum … Mum was just shocked, I think. I don’t know what he was like with her when I wasn’t around, but I can imagine it … it wasn’t good. When I got home from school Mum would keep the kitchen light on and shut the door and I’d sit in there and do my homework and we’d chat and she’d cook dinner while Gary was at work, but as soon as we heard his car pull onto the driveway she’d quickly switch the light off. One evening he came straight into the kitchen still wearing his shoes and coat. Mum had turned the light off when she’d heard his car, so we were sitting in the dark as usual, but he was acting all weird, pacing around the kitchen like he was really angry. He dragged a kitchen chair to the middle of the room, then stood on it and felt the light bulb, flinching when it scorched his hand. It was hot from where we’d had it on. Mum started to apologize, saying I needed the light so I could do my homework, but he didn’t say anything. He walked out of the kitchen and went to their bedroom, where he stayed for the rest of the evening.”

My hands were trembling while I talked, and I stuffed them under my legs to keep them still.

“The next day he removed every light bulb in the house.”

“He did what?!”

I just looked at Sam, and he shook his head and stared at the floor.

“If that had happened to me, I’d be freaked out by the dark too.”

I gave him a weak smile. “We lived like that for months. The summer wasn’t too bad, as it was light in the evenings and the mornings, but winter was awful.”

“What if someone came to visit? Didn’t they notice something wrong?” said Sam.

I shook my head. “No one came around. By the time Gary removed the light bulbs we hadn’t had any visitors for weeks. Mum had stopped inviting people because Gary would make the air all tense. I remember her friend Laura turning up one evening with a bottle of wine and some flowers. I think she was worried about Mum, to be honest. I was listening upstairs, and Mum turned her away, saying now wasn’t a good time, but all they were doing was watching television. I think she was just doing whatever made life easier, and that meant not letting on that Gary was the way he was.”

The wind was picking up outside and whistling over the top of the chimney like it was blowing across a bottle.

“You know what, Nate? You were so brave to go into that ice house. To confront your fears like that.”

I shrugged. I hadn’t felt brave; I’d felt terrified.

The two of us sat in silence for a bit.

“Where do you think your mum is, Nate?” said Sam.

I swallowed, not looking at him. The thing that had been worrying me for so long pushed itself to the front of my brain. A horrible thought trying to be let in, to be made real.

“I think she’s gone back,” I said. “I think she’s gone back to Gary.”

When I next looked up, Sam had vanished.