Michaela tried to think logically. There were things she needed to know if she was going to make a start on getting to the bottom of this.

If she even wanted to, that was.

She remembered the sensation of being watched, of turning around and seeing that inky mass of shadow lurking in the depths of the bedroom. A shadow, she thought, could hide anywhere. Move anywhere.

But shadows were just patches of darkness caused by objects blocking the light. She looked down at the ground. There was her own shadow, long and vaguely Michaela-shaped, flattened against the grass. Harmless.

Not a normal shadow, then. Michaela almost smiled to herself. Well, duh, not a normal shadow. So what did that make it?

An entity of some sort.

Michaela looked across the table at Trisha. She looked beautiful in the slanting sunlight. Even puffing nervously at yet another cigarette, left leg juddering as she tapped her foot. Her customary bravado was missing, but she was still beautiful. Michaela would have come all this way just to sit right here and look at her.

An entity of some sort. This wasn’t good. But it did bring to mind the next questions to ask. Michaela picked up Trisha’s lighter and fiddled idly with it as she thought. She was aware that Trisha was looking at her, but she didn’t open her mouth just yet.

If it were an entity of some sort, well then, what sort was it? And why was it here? Did it want something? Was it already getting something? Jeeze, that was a bad thought. Michaela tapped the lighter against the table, in time with Trisha’s foot. The last question, of course, was how do you get rid of it? That was the one you really wanted to hit on the head. Michaela looked up.

‘Let’s go have another look inside,’ she said. ‘Maybe I can look in Caro’s room?’ She picked up her empty mug. ‘I’d love another coffee too.’

She stood up and Trisha stepped forward and wrapped her arms round her. Michaela put down the cup and hugged her back. ‘What’s this for?’ she asked.

Trisha looked up at her face. ‘You believe me, don’t you? That something’s there, that something’s going on?’ Trisha’s eyes were moist and Michaela suspected she was close to tears. Somehow that was the worst thing of all. That Trisha, so cocky and sure of herself, was scared.

Michaela tipped her head down and kissed the woman in her arms. ‘Yeah, I believe it,’ she said. ‘Of course I do. I saw it.’

But Trisha was shaking her head. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘Most people, even if they’d seen something, wouldn’t believe it even then. You, you just accept it and start puzzling out what it could be.’

Michaela tightened her arms, but Trisha wasn’t finished.

‘You’re amazing,’ she said. ‘Last year, by the lake, you figured out what was going on and I know you’ll do just the same this time.’

Michaela frowned and took Trisha by the shoulders. ‘For starters,’ she said, ‘last year at the lake it was both of us who did that, both of us who figured out what was going on and we both did something about it.’ She was shaking her head now. ‘And this is different. You know it is; this is no hoax or anything, you know that. And I may not be able to get to the bottom of it in a million years. We may not be able to figure it out at all, this time.’

Trisha stared at her. She shrugged. ‘You will,’ she said. ‘If anyone can, you will.’ She turned toward the house and sighed. ‘Shall we go in?’

Michaela followed her in and wandered around the house while Trisha made more coffee. She opened every door and peered into the corners. She felt terrible snooping around the house but Trisha just told her to go ahead. But there was nothing to see anyway. Whatever had been here before, it didn’t seem to be around now. Michaela went back to the kitchen and took a sip of her coffee.

‘When did it start?’ she asked.

Trisha shrugged. ‘Few months back, I guess. Something scared the shit out of Caro one night and she came barrelling into my room babbling about someone watching her. I searched the whole fucking neighbourhood that night.’ She took a sip of her drink. ‘Didn’t find anyone, of course. It kept happening though. Someone dressed in black, Caro kept saying. A shadow man, she said, except I didn’t know what the fuck she meant by that.

‘Then one night I was up late, worked the late shift at the diner, too wired to sleep. I was sitting over there.’ She gestured at the dining table. ‘Saw something. Out of the corner of my eye at first, just movement. Something dark. Shadows.’ Trisha shuddered at the memory. ‘Shadows like out of some fucking horror movie, gathering just out of sight, watching.’ She sighed, shrugged. ‘And it’s been the same story ever since. I only see them out of the corner of my eye, but Caro says they stand around her bed and watch her.’ She looked at Michaela. ‘Can you imagine how terrifying that must be?’

Michaela thought about what she’d seen. Would she want to wake up in the middle of the night and see that looking down at her? No way, and she’d woken up to see other things. Ghosts. That shadow in the hallway and then the bedroom though; that wasn’t any ghost. She didn’t think so anyway. It had felt, for that moment, like something with absolutely no vestiges of humanity. She looked around.

‘I don’t think there’s anything here at the moment,’ she said. ‘Not that I can see anyway.’

Trisha moved past her to go outside. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘It’ll be back tonight.’