Michaela pushed past into the room and looked around.

‘I can’t see it,’ she said. ‘Did you say it was dark?’

Caro was shaking her head. ‘I don’t know now. I’m sure it was dark in here before.’ She peered around the room. ‘Maybe my eyes were dazzled from being outside or something,’ she said.

Trisha looked around, frowning. ‘It all looks normal to me,’ she said. ‘What did you see when you first stepped into the room, Caro?’

Confusion spread across Caro’s face. ‘I don’t know,’ she said again. ‘The room was just dark. Like it was night time or something.’

Michaela looked around the room. It was all normal in here now. The shadows all had matching objects. That she could see anyway.

But Caro was looking suddenly pale. She shook her head and walked stiff legged over to the table and sat down. ‘I feel sick,’ she said.

Michaela and Trisha followed her into the room. Michaela went through the archway into the kitchen and poured Caro a glass of water.

‘Look at this, you two,’ Trisha said. She was standing in front of Caro’s open laptop.

Michaela gave Caro the water. The girl was pale and sweating. ‘What is it?’ Michaela asked, examining Caro, who looked like she was in shock.

‘You gotta see this,’ Trisha said and turned the computer around so they could see the screen.

Caro dropped her glass of water. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.

Michaela stood up and leaned closer to the picture on the screen. ‘What is this? How was it taken?’ she asked.

‘I had the webcam on,’ Caro said. ‘It’s horrible. Get rid of it.’

Trisha turned the screen away from Caro. She met Michaela’s eye and raised her eyebrows. Michaela gave a slight shake of the head and looked down at Caro, who was hunched over, staring at the glass on the floor. Trisha came over and put an arm around her sister.

‘Let’s get you over on the couch okay?’ she said. Caro stood up, still pale and shaky and walked over to the couch, leaning into Trisha as they went. She lay down on the couch and Trisha tucked a blanket around her. ‘Lie here, okay, while I mop up the water and talk to Michaela?’

Caro gave a small nod and Trisha walked back over to the table where Michaela was already wiping up the spilled water. She stared at the picture on the screen.

‘You got any ideas?’ she asked.

Michaela put the towel in the kitchen and came back for a closer look. She shook her head.

‘Sure isn’t like the last mystery we solved,’ Trisha said.

‘You’re right there,’ Michaela agreed, both of them speaking quietly. ‘I really don’t see how a person could be doing this one.’ She thought of Gardener’s terrible plan to hurt his mother, and almost wished this was along the same lines.

But she didn’t think it was. The picture on the screen, caught in a freeze frame by the webcam, which was now off, sure didn’t look to be some sort of elaborate hoax perpetrated in the few minutes that Caro was out of the room.

She wondered if perhaps Caro had taken this photo herself. Some sort of cry for attention, perhaps. Except Caro was lying on the couch in shock.

Michaela pressed down a couple keys and saved the picture to the hard drive. Later she would ask Caro to email her a copy, so there was less chance of losing it. She peered at the screen. It showed part of the room they were standing in. The camera had been at a slight angle, capturing perhaps a third of the room and the front door. The depth of field was strange, almost as though a fish-eye lens had been used, the room strangely distorted and bubble-like. But that wasn’t the worst thing.

The walls were black. She looked up at the real version, papered in a light floral pattern, then back at the photograph. Shadows climbed the walls, congregating in the corners, their darkness looking dense enough to reach out and touch. The front door was open and there the shadows were worst, as though they were coming through the open door in droves. Michaela reached out a finger and traced the almost human shape of one of the shadows.

‘Shadow people,’ she said, ‘just like on those Internet sites.’

Trisha was standing behind her. ‘Yeah, but what are they? What does it mean?’

Michaela shook her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

Trisha looked back at Caro, lying still on the couch. ‘Well, we’d better find out, and quickly,’ she said.

Michaela sank down onto the chair and rubbed her face. Where the hell was she supposed to start? She remembered what she and Caro had been talking about. Ask the right questions and you would get the answers. But what were the right questions?

Trisha was checking on Caro. ‘She’s gone to sleep,’ she reported. ‘Is that normal?’

‘Shock puts some people out. Probably the best thing she can do.’

Trisha looked at her watch. ‘Yeah, except she’s supposed to be at the diner in a couple hours.’ She came and sat next to Michaela. ‘I’ll do her shift if she’s not up to it. We can’t let her sleep in her room anymore you know.’ Trisha sighed. ‘I don’t know if I even want to sleep in my room anymore.’

Michaela nodded. ‘I was going to spend the night in Caro’s room,’ she said. ‘See if I could see anything.’

‘You want to still do that?’

Michaela looked at the photo. ‘More than ever,’ she said.

‘I don’t know,’ said Trisha. ‘You’re braver than me then.’

‘It’s not bravery, believe me babe. Caro’s the brave one; this has been going on for months, she said, and she’s slept in there every night.’

‘Guess there wasn’t much choice.’

Michaela leaned over and gave Trisha a kiss. ‘We’ll figure it out,’ she said.

‘Where do we start?’

Michaela looked back at the photo. ‘At the beginning,’ she said.