They got out of there within minutes, all of them talking at once. Until they got back home. Trisha parked the Mustang in the driveway and silence fell in the car.

‘I don’t like it at home anymore,’ Caro said after a moment. ‘I wish I was old enough to go away to college already,’ she said.

‘You’d miss Mom,’ Trisha said in a way that made Michaela guess she’d said the same thing several times before.

‘Mom’s never around,’ Caro replied. ‘She’s always at her precious Diner.’

Still staring at the house. ‘The Diner is what pays for your food and clothes.’

Caro snorted. ‘Food maybe. I have to work there to pay for my own bloody clothes.’

Caro was crouched forward between the two front seats. Trisha took one of Caro’s hands and squeezed it. ‘You’ll be away to college before you know it, kiddo.’

‘Sure.’ Caro’s knuckles whitened in Trisha’s hand. ‘But let’s leave now, all right? We can get an apartment somewhere, I’ll work part time after school, we’d manage fine, you know?’

Trisha took her eyes off the house and looked at her sister. Michaela shifted in her seat.

‘Mom would never let you leave with me,’ Trisha said. ‘You know she wouldn’t let you do that.’

‘Mom won’t even be home tonight,’ Caro replied. ‘I’ll bet you anything you like she’ll sleep above the Diner. She refuses to rent out the apartment above it because it’s where she prefers to live.’

Trisha didn’t say anything. Michaela gave them a minute then cleared her throat.

‘You want to show me what you found on your computer?’ she asked Caro.

‘Yeah, sure. Whatever.’

The lights sent the shadows fleeing to the corners of the room. Caro disappeared into her room.

‘You want a coffee?’ Trisha asked.

‘Please,’ Michaela replied. ‘Does your mom really sleep over at the Diner? She asked.

Trisha moved around the kitchen. ‘Since I’ve been back, yeah. But Caro told me she was spending a three or four nights a week there before that too.’ She spooned instant coffee into the mugs. ‘I don’t think we’ll see much of her.’ She stirred in the hot water and carried Michaela’s cup to her. ‘It’s why I’m still here.’

‘Thanks,’ Michaela said, taking the cup from her and setting it down on the table. She smoothed Trisha’s hair back from her face. ‘You’re doing the right thing,’ she said.

Trisha stared back at her. ‘I know.’

Michaela nodded; she deserved that. ‘I wish I’d known earlier.’

Trisha shrugged. ‘What was the point of telling you? By the time I knew how things really were here, you were gone back to New Zealand when your grandmother died.’

Michaela rested her forehead against Trisha’s and gazed into her eyes. ‘Nothing’s ever easy, is it?’ she said. She drew Trisha closer and wrapped her arms around her, finding her lips.

A voice interrupted them. ‘Get a room, guys, jeeze, this is supposed to be G-rated around here. Save the hot and heavy girl on girl action for somewhere else. ’

They drew apart, Michaela feeling a blush spread over her face.

‘Zip your mouth, little sister,’ Trisha said and Caro shot her a look Michaela couldn’t make out.

Caro was holding a sleek silver laptop. Michaela nodded at it. ‘Show me what you have,’ she said.

Caro put it on the table and opened it. She fiddled round with cables a moment. ‘We’ve only got a dial-up connection, so I have to plug this in. It takes so much longer with dial up,’ she said.

‘Nice computer,’ Michaela said, watching it boot up.

‘Yeah, I got a really good deal on it,’ Caro said. ‘And really bloody sore feet waitressing to pay for it.’

Michaela laughed, she couldn’t help it. ‘You sound just like your sister,’ she said.

Trisha was scowling. ‘I told you to mind your language.’

‘Don’t be such a hypocrite,’ Caro told her. ‘Besides, I am nowhere as bad as you.’

Michaela laughed again and looked at Trisha. ‘She’s right babe, no one I’ve ever met has quite your facility with language.’

Trisha pulled a face and dug around for her cigarettes. ‘Ah fuck up the both of you,’ she said.

They all laughed and Michaela decided that despite the fact she was dog tired and somewhere in this very house there was something quite strange and awful, despite all that, at this very moment, she wouldn’t have wished to be anywhere else.

Caro was sitting at the table now, typing into the search engine. The page changed with a few clicks of Caro’s mouse and the screen went black. Michaela leaned forward as she watched the page load. Black background, gold lettering for the title. She gave a low whistle.

‘There’s a whole site dedicated to this?’ she asked.

‘Yeah,’ said Caro. ‘There’s this site, and hundreds of others.’ Michaela saw her shudder. ‘Those things in my room, that thing you saw today, Michaela, everyone’s seeing them.’

She pointed at the page. ‘Everyone’s seeing them, but no one knows what they really are.’

Michaela stared at the title and image on the screen in front of her. Trisha walked around the table until she could see too.

‘You never showed me any of this, Caro,’ she said.

Caro shrugged. ‘Too freaky,’ she said.

They lapsed into silence then. Michaela lifted her eyes from the screen and looked around the room. Suddenly the electric light seemed very yellow and dim against the darkening afternoon pressing against the windows. The hallway was shadowy behind the partly open door.

She looked back down at the screen. ‘Okay then,’ she said. ‘We’ll start with this.’ Her voice sounded steadier than she felt. She read the heading on the page again.

The Official Shadow People Archives.