I waited up for Henry until my eyes were closing.
I was pretty sure he of all people would know exactly what was going to happen at Longcross, and why it was so important that we stay away. But that night I didn’t feel his weight on my bed or hear his mother at the door. There was just me, and Reynard on the wall. Under the terrified eye of the dying fox, a question occurred to me: if Henry was real and alive, how had he entered the room if a locked door kept his sleepwalking mother out? I didn’t think it was ‘all a dream’, like some story you write in Year 6 English, because I had the dog rose from Longcross. But there were only two explanations, and as I drifted to sleep I turned them over in my mind.
1) Henry was a dream after all.
2) Cumberland Place had its secrets, and somewhere, somehow, there was another door.