Trisha looked up. ‘What took you so long? Your coffee will be cold.’

Michaela drew her jacket tighter. She was shivering. Sitting down beside Trisha she picked up the coffee mug and wrapped her hands around its luke-warm sides. She took a sip. Trisha was looking at her.

‘You okay? You look kinda weird.’

Michaela leaned over. ‘Give me one of your cigarettes, okay?’

Trisha frowned. ‘What the hell? Michaela, you don’t smoke.’

Michaela merely shrugged and Trisha pushed the pack towards her. She dug into the pack and pulled one out, lighting it and taking a breath of smoke. She didn’t cough, but grimaced and blew it out. ‘Bloody hell, these are disgusting,’ she said.

Trisha was looking confused. ‘Are you all right, Michaela?’ She gestured for the cigarette. ‘Give me that, you silly bitch. You don’t smoke, and take it from me, you don’t want to start.’

Michaela handed over the cigarette and went back to her coffee. It wasn’t hot, but it was better than nothing. She thought about the hallway, and the shadow, the shadow thing she’d seen in Caro’s room.

‘There’s something in your sister’s room,’ she said. ‘That’s why you wanted me to come over.’

Trisha gaped at her. When she spoke, her voice was high and thin. ‘You saw it?’

‘I saw something,’ Michaela replied. ‘What it was, I have no idea, but I didn’t like it.’ She looked down at the dregs of cold coffee. ‘It didn’t feel like a ghost,’ she said, thinking of the time years ago when she’d seen a ghost for sure, standing in the doorway to her own bedroom, looking for all the world like an old- fashioned, half- erased  photograph of a gentleman in a top hat. She’d had other experiences since then, but that had been the start of it.

But she’d seen nothing like this. ‘What is it?’ she asked Trisha.

Trisha was sitting staring at her, a wide grin on her face. She jumped up from her chair and punched the air.

‘I knew it!’ Trisha said, doing a little two-step. ‘I fucking knew you were the right person to deal with it.’ She grabbed Michaela’s face and kissed her smack on the lips. ‘I love you, Michaela.’

I love you? Michaela tucked that nugget away for later perusal. She shook her head instead. ‘You’re going to have to tell me what you know,’ she said. ‘I saw something, but I’m not even sure what, so don’t go getting too excited yet.’

Trisha was shaking her head too. ‘No fucking way, Michaela, I don’t care. You’ve been here all of five shitting minutes and it showed itself to you. I knew I was right to call you.’ She took a drag on the cigarette and pulled her fingers through her hair. ‘I don’t know what it is, babe. All I know is we gotta get rid of it. I don’t like it, and Caro is scared out of her fucking mind, I’ll tell you that for free.’

Michaela held up her hands. ‘Slow down Trisha. Let’s start at the beginning, okay?’ She eyed the house. She would have liked another cup of coffee, but truthfully, she didn’t much fancy the idea of going back into the house. She shivered again as she remembered the sensation of being watched, of that dark shadow like cancer on an x-ray.

‘How do you guys manage to stay here?’ she asked without thinking.

Trisha slumped back down in the chair beside her. ‘Where’re we going to go, babe? Don’t have any choice.’ She flicked the cigarette away and inched her fingers towards the pack for another. ‘I could leave, sure. But what about Caro? She can’t go anywhere. And Mom’s as useful as tits on a bull.’

‘Has she seen it too? Your mom, I mean?’

Trisha nodded and pulled a cigarette out. ‘She’s seen something, anyway. None of us knows what to call it.’

Michaela looked up at the sky, thinking. ‘What do you see?’

‘Some sort of black shadow fuck.’ She shuddered and took a deep drag on the cigarette. ‘It lurks around. Caro complains it watches her at night. Stands by her bed and watches her. Fuck, just the thought of that scares me to death. What the hell is it?’

Michaela shook her head. She had no idea. She was still amazed she’d even seen anything. How weird was it to just walk into a place and see something like that straight away?

Almost as if the thing had wanted her to see it. Or it had wanted to take a look at her.

Which was worse?

She looked at Trisha. Trisha’s exhilaration had left her and she looked pale and drained again.

‘Have you seen anything else?’

Trisha seemed to understand what she was asking. She shook her head. ‘Just the shadow. Though sometimes I think there’s more than one of them.’ She took another puff on the cigarette and stared off into the distance. ‘Sometimes I’m sitting at the table, okay? Late at night, I can’t sleep. I’ll see something out of the corner of my eye. Movement. A dark blur or something. Turn around and there’s nothing there.’ She moved her dark eyes until she was looking at Michaela again.

‘Just shadows, babe,’ she said. ‘But there’s nothing there throwing these shadows.’ Back into the distance again. ‘And I don’t think they’re friendly either.’