Silence. Then—

‘NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!’ Hope drops to her knees and shakes her fists at the ceiling. ‘I KNEW IT! I KNEW YOU WOULD DIVORCE US EVENTUALLY! I KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN! NOOOO! I DIVIDE YOU, STARS!’

Laughing, I pull my little sister up by the armpits.

‘I’m not divorcing you,’ I explain gently. ‘I’ll still be part of the family. I’ll just be living somewhere else. Doing something else. With … a different name.’

OK, that does sound a bit like a divorce.

‘But—’ Max chimes in. ‘Eff, everyone wants to be us. Why on earth would you want to be them? What are you going to do with –’ he pulls a grotesque face – ‘ordinariness?’

‘No idea.’ I grin. ‘That’s the point.’

Because the mist has gone and when I look down I can see my feet and I can see the ground and I can go in any direction I want.

Even if I don’t know quite where that is just yet. Especially if I don’t.

The warm roar spreads through me again and I look with tenderness at my mother. Did she ever get to choose?

She remains at the window – still fragile and curled in on herself – and my heart squeezes. I’m not even sure if she’s been listening. It’s not going to be easy for her to come back to us. Losing a sister is unbearable, but a daughter? How do you recover from that kind of grief? Where do you even start?

As if she can hear me, Mum turns round and her tearful eyes meet mine. I’m sorry.

I smile sadly. Me too.

Without a word, Dad walks over and wraps Mum in a giant bear hug as she returns her empty gaze to the trees outside. Then he turns to me and asks, ‘So, Effie, if you’re not going to be a Valentine any more, who are you going to be?’

‘Faith Rivers,’ I say simply.

‘But—’ My father looks genuinely stunned, bless his massive socks. ‘You’re taking my surname? Wait – is that even allowed?’

‘People do it all the time,’ Hope says, patting his arm. ‘It’s called gender quality, Dad.’

I glance over at my grandmother. She hasn’t said a single word since she entered the room, and she’s so stiff and velvety she’s practically indistinguishable from the armchair.

She leans forward on her walking stick and slowly pushes herself up.

‘Faith.’ Her gaze is steady. ‘Do you know why I trained you every Wednesday for a year?’

‘Yes.’ I nod and swallow guiltily. ‘And I’m sorry, Grandma. I am. I know we’re a dynasty a hundred years in the making. I know I’m throwing away an extraordinary opportunity. I know I was the future of the Valentines, but I just—’

‘I trained you,’ she says, ‘because you needed it.’

I flush. ‘Yes, I know. I’m a terrible actress, but—’

‘No. Not because you’re a terrible actress. God knows, Hollywood has been built on the faces of beautiful women who couldn’t act their way out of a paper bag. I was training you to keep you private.’

I stare at her. ‘Huh?’

‘You think I don’t know what your favourite colour is?’ She’s watching me carefully. ‘Or your favourite ice cream? You think I gave you pre-written answers and Genevieve’s social-media posts because the real you doesn’t matter? Darling girl, I gave them to you specifically because it does.’

My mouth drops open. I wasn’t being trained to be known by the entire world. I was being trained not to be.

After six decades of fame, my grandmother was trying her very hardest to give me a shell and make sure that nobody could prise me open.

Like they did my mother.

‘But if you don’t actually want to act –’ Dame Sylvia Valentine leans further forward – ‘then, for goodness’ sake, don’t take all the other nonsense that comes with it. For that would make you utterly miserable indeed.’

There’s a sudden lump in my throat. ‘Thank you.’

‘Although,’ she adds drily, ‘I very much enjoyed your little takedown at that auction. Even if the old master you sold for pennies did belong to us.’

‘Wait,’ Hope pipes up. ‘Which one?’

Oops.

And slowly the room starts to fill with noise and colour. Dad is looking fondly at an old photo of him and Charity, Hope’s reading some of the jokes and giggling, my mother has walked away from the window and is now tenderly stroking the clothes in Charity’s wardrobe and Grandma is watching her with soft eyes.

The Valentine family is slowly recalibrating: finding our places, remembering our lines, resuming our positions. Only this time I’ve got a role I’ve chosen.

‘Mercy,’ I say suddenly, picking a yellow Post-it off the wall and turning to face the only shadowy, silent corner. ‘Do you remember how Tee thought this was the funniest ever—’

But something tells me this corner has been empty for a while.

My sister has gone.