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Poppins the dog jumps out, rushing toward us. She barks and wags her tail before licking Rose’s hand.
“Who put you in there?” Rose asks, and when the dog doesn’t answer, they both turn to stare in my direction.
“It wasn’tme,” I say.
“There’s no sign of Trixie in the other bedrooms,” Conor says, appearing in the gloomy doorway. He holds up his hand to shieldhis eyes when Rose points her flashlight at his face. “Where did you get that?” he asks.
“When I checked Nancy’s room, it was under the bed,” says Rose. “I thought it might come in handy if the lights went out—they often do when there is a storm—and that wasn’t all I found there.”
“Trixie?”
Rose lowers her voice to a whisper. “No. This.”
Conor steps farther into the room, and Rose produces a small floral bag.
Conor shakes his head. “What is it?”
“It’s Lily’s missing diabetic kit.”
“I thought she couldn’t find it. What’s it doing under your mother’s bed?”
“I don’t know.”
The bedroom door squeaks, telling tales on the person behind it. We all turn and take a step back—I’m not the only one who is afraid now—and Rose’s flashlight reveals Lily standing on the landing. She has used her lighter to find her way in the dark, and is still holding it up, like someone at a pop concert. Her face looks strange, as though she can’t quite see us.
“There’s no sign of Trixie in Nana’s bedroom. Did you find anything?”
“No,” answers Rose before anyone else can. “Let’s head back downstairs, maybe Nancy might have had more luck. Try not to worry, we will find Trixie.”
“Okay,” Lily says, nodding, as though desperate for someone else to take charge. The habitual fight has gone out of her, and she seems broken. It’s as though Lily’s lights switched off when Seaglass’s did.
Rose leads the way with her flashlight as we creep downstairs in the darkness. Our silent fear seems as loud as the storm outside. It’s even colder down here now that the fire has almost burned itself out, but that isn’t why we are huddled together. Conor takes a candle from the mantelpiece and lights it, and we return to the window seat in the lounge—the last place we all saw Trixie.
“I don’t understand, she wasrighthere,” Lily says, picking up the blanket and holding it to her nose, like a dog checking for scent.
“We’ll find her,” says Rose, but from the tone of her voice I’m not convinced she believes it. “You look pale. I found this upstairs. When did you last inject?”
Lily takes the diabetic kit from her and unzips it straightaway. “Hours ago. Where did you find it?”
Rose stares at the floor. “Nancy’s room.” For some reason, her answer sounds like a lie.
“My insulin pen is missing,” Lily says.
Time seems to stop again while we all catch up with life’s latest plot twist.
“Nancy?” Lily calls, but there is no answer. Our mother is now also nowhere to be found.
We search the rest of the rooms downstairs together, with Poppins following us. I think she thought it was a game before, but now she walks with her tail between her legs and her ears back. I can’t help wondering whether she might be able to hear something we can’t. The thunder and lightning continue as we move through the house with just a flashlight and a candle, though the storm does at least seem to be moving farther away.
“Trixie!” Lily calls her daughter’s name repeatedly—we all do—but there is no answer.
We look inside the library. It is filled with Nana’s books,crammed in no particular order into every available space on the shelves that line the room. The sofa shows no sign of where Rose slept on it earlier, but her overnight bag is in the corner. The room is cold, and dark, and empty.
Rose leads the way to the kitchen next. It’s obvious that the huge room at the back of the house is uninhabited too, but we take it in turns to look under the table, inside cupboards, and behind curtains. Conor is taller than the rest of us, and accidently walks into the black and orange paper chains Nana had decorated the ceiling with for Halloween. I feel as though we are going through the motions, scared of running out of places to search. And we are all tryingnotto look at the chalk poem written on the wall.
“We should check Nana’s studio,” Rose says. She and Lily exchange uncomfortable glances, I think because it is somewhere they were not allowed to go as children.
“It’s probably locked, always used to be,” says Lily, walking toward the door. But when she tries the handle, it swings open with an eerie creak. Even in the dim light, we can all see that the studio has been ransacked.
