I check the rooms, laying clean towels on each of the beds. Normally, I would put a hot-water bottle under Kylan’s sheets for him to find, but I see Katya’s suitcase on the floor of the guest bedroom and I know I can’t do that any more.
In the bathroom, I fill the basin with water, shut my eyes, and wash my face. I rub my face on a towel, and when I look up, she is there in the mirror next to me. Her hair is still white blonde: a little greasy, and tied in a shiny ponytail. She wears the pyjamas with the pink hearts, but they are clean now. Side by side, her leg is wider, denser, than mine. She hasn’t lost the weight yet. I put my hand out, squeezing the hard muscle. She tenses her leg, stretching it out and pointing her toes. Then she begins the exercises: swinging her leg out to the side, the front, and then the back, pushing it up as far as it will go. As she lifts her arms, they are inches from my face, her fingernails unbitten.
I begin to copy her and our movements align, our legs next to each other. She can get hers higher than mine, much higher; her movements are more fluid. We rise onto our tiptoes, and I feel my muscles elongate. I touch the ceiling and hold, hold, hold.
When I lower myself back down, she is gone. My heart pounds in my chest; my arms and legs tingle.
Entering the bedroom, I look around to check if she is still there. Though I can’t see her, I feel her watching me as I undress and pull my woollen nightgown over my head. I slip under the covers and shut my eyes, trying to ignore the sounds from downstairs, to drift off to sleep.
*
I wake up to screaming in the darkness. It is loud, piercing. Soon, the sounds turn into words. Help me, somebody, please. Sometimes it stops, and beyond it, through the silence, I can hear the whirring of a fan. Then it starts again.
‘Marta?’
I blink in the darkness, not sure whether my eyes are open or shut. There is the familiar sense of dread.
The light flicks on. The clock on the bedside table reads 03:07. Hector is beside me in the bed, his eyes bleary with sleep, flat and unreadable.
‘You were screaming,’ he says, as though he knows he doesn’t need to.
I feel the softness of the ironed sheets, the warmth of the bedside lamp.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. It’s the old conversation, and I remember my part.
‘Bad dream?’ he asks.
I think, as if I can’t remember, then nod. I don’t think I was asleep at all.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ he says. He has learnt, by now, that the answer is always no.
‘I’m fine,’ I say.
He looks at me one last time, then rolls onto his back. ‘Do you think you’ll be able to get back to sleep?’ he asks.
‘Yes,’ I say, and Hector flicks out the light.
I lie in the yawning darkness. My stomach is heavy, as if it is filled with jagged black stones. I raise my hand up to my face, but I see nothing and I squeeze my eyelids together to check they are closed. I count to a hundred. I do it again. Nothing changes.
Then I hear her voice, whispering: her breath is warm in my ear.
They’ll never find me. I don’t even know where I am.
Then she is screaming again.
I can’t stand it. With my head resting on the pillow, I put my fingers in my ears.
When I pull my hands away, she has stopped. There is only silence now, and that is worse, because it means she has gone again.