I found myself drawn to one door. There was something mesmeric in its surface, a deep vitality in the panelling. I stepped closer and it seemed the door itself was filled with a burning light which glinted through the grain, just on the edges of my vision. My feet seemed heavy, rooted, but at the same time there was a quiet, insistent pulse, stroking my shoes, pulling them towards the gap beneath the door. The door handle was spotless brass. My hand reached for it slowly, magnetically.

Kirsten’s hand fastened round my wrist. Startled, I looked up. She was close, physical, her body a solid presence inches from me. Her eyes locked with mine. No, she mouthed silently. Not yet. The sudden intimacy shocked me but I didn't move and a glimmer of understanding passed between us. She saw my unease around her, my distrust of her hidden senses, the discomfort I’d always tried to hide. She pulled back a little and I felt her dismay. But before that, I saw one secret buried deep in her gaze; a raw terror of the house and its unseen occupants. Mine was a fear of the unknown, a vague unease born from half-remembered fragments. Kirsten's fear was of what she could see around us, and it was raw and smothering.

The space between us grew, dizzy and vast. Kirsten seemed distant and hazy, lonely, already lost to me. Her hand slipped from my wrist and she stepped back, on the edge of some mental precipice.

Andrew broke the moment with noise, rattling the door opposite. “Bloody locked,” he said. I thought, he’s too crude for this place, he doesn’t fit here. Then he brushed past me, muttering about the clock.