8

They both sensed it following them back to the house on Edgbaston Road. The dark was chasing them too. The light was receding over the rooftops, car headlights coming on, the rain and the wind chasing them up the road, leaves skittering at their ankles; Susanna realised that she was glancing behind her as much as Felicity was. Somehow, some alchemy of shared fear and belief and acknowledgement of grief had bonded them, despite their reluctance.

The house was not welcoming. In their absence, the shadows had taken hold of the rooms. As Susanna fumbled with the key in the lock, she realised that she no longer wished to be here, but there was something that had to be done, something that had been seeded in the back of her mind as they’d walked back from the park. She sensed that Felicity knew what had to be done too; it was why she had returned. What other choice did they have? They could go back to their old lives but it would come with them, haunt them, watch them, follow them; the regret they’d never be released from, the guilt they’d never assuage, the damage they’d done to all of their lives, the shadow they’d never be able to put any real distance between. Perhaps there was a solution within that notion.

She ventured into the hall, switching on the lights as she went. The darkness seemed to be taking hold of the rooms faster than she could light them. Beyond the kitchen window, the shorn trees in the garden swayed in the wind, and the hole in the mouth of upturned earth looked like a toothless socket. Felicity hesitated behind her, uncertain where to place herself in the space of the room.

Susanna knew what they had to do. She turned to Felicity. “We need more of the mandrake,” she said. “And a ritual of our own.