The following morning Valentina and Elspeth sat at the Ouija board together. Elspeth had been doing some thinking.

I DONT UNDERSTAND, Elspeth spelled.

“I want to leave Julia,” Valentina said. Her idea had been growing on her until she thought of little else.

SO LEAVE HER

“She won’t let me.”

NONSENSE

“When you and Mom split up-”

WE HAD NO CHOICE

“Why not?”

Elspeth twirled the planchette aimlessly, then stopped.

“If Julia thinks I’m dead, she’ll let me go.”

JULIA WOULD BE CRUSHED IF YOU DIED EDIE AND JACK TOO

Valentina had not thought of her parents. She frowned, but said, “Look, Elspeth, it’ll be perfect. I’ll die, Julia will be forced to go on without me, she’ll get over it. And you’ll put me back in my body and I’ll live happily ever after, or, you know, I’ll at least be able to live my own life. I’ll be free.”

Elspeth sat with her fingers on the planchette, looking at Valentina. To Valentina her expression seemed irritated, then thoughtful. LETS CONSIDER THIS LOGISTICALLY, Elspeth spelled. YOU WILL BE OUT OF BODY FOR DAYS-THERE WILL BE A FUNERAL-BODY WILL BEGIN TO ROT-THEN BODY IS IN CEMETERY-WE ARE HERE-MAYBE-WHAT IF YOUR GHOST ENDS UP ELSEWHERE-HOW WOULD BODY AND SOUL GET BACK TOGETHER-BODY WILL BE HORRIBLE-IN SHORT YOU ARE INSANE

“We’ll get Robert to help us.”

HE WONT DO IT

“He will if you ask him to.”

Elspeth felt deeply agitated. Disaster, that’s what this is. The snake, the apple, the woman: it’s pure bloody temptation. It can only end badly. Tell her no. She can’t do it without you. If you refuse she’ll find a more sensible way to cope with Julia. No, no, no. Elspeth became aware that Valentina was sitting very patiently, like a good schoolgirl, waiting for her answer. Tell her absolutely not.

Elspeth put her fingers on the planchette. LET ME THINK ABOUT IT, she spelled.

Counting

VALENTINA SAT in the back garden drinking tea. It was a damp grey May morning, even earlier than she was wont to rise. The stone bench Valentina sat on was covered in lichen and the damp was getting through her dressing gown, an old quilted thing of Elspeth’s. She slid her feet out of their slippers and tucked her legs up so that her chin rested on her knees.

Elspeth sat in the window seat, watching her.

Valentina could hear magpies calling in the cemetery. Two of them settled on top of the wall and looked at her. They shifted from foot to foot. Valentina looked back at them, trying to remember the rhyme Edie had taught them:

One for sadness,

Two for joy,

Three for a wedding,

Four for a child,

Five for sickness,

Six for death.

Two for joy, she thought. That’s good. But even as she smiled to herself, three more magpies plopped down beside the first two, and a moment later they were joined by an especially large, shrieking magpie that landed in their midst and sent the others walking back and forth on the wall uneasily. Valentina looked away, then up at their window. Is that Julia? A dark form stood framed in the window against the darkness of the room, like a hole in reality. Valentina stood up and shielded her eyes with her hand, trying to see. Elspeth? No, there’s nothing there. It had been a disquieting thought, the dark thing in the dark…No, it’s nothing. Elspeth wouldn’t be so…strange.

Valentina drank the last swallow of tea, gathered up her cup and saucer and spoon, and went back into the house.

Test

THE LITTLE Kitten of Death was sleeping on Valentina’s pillow. It was afternoon, and sunlight slanted through the bedroom window, across the rug, up the side of the bed, not quite reaching the Kitten. She was almost white enough to blend into the pillowcase, like a drawing of a polar bear in a snowstorm, Elspeth thought. Elspeth stood in the sun, letting it pour through her, watching the Kitten sleep. I want you. Elspeth felt depressed. She had never thought of herself as someone who would kill a beautiful white kitten while it napped. But apparently she was that sort of person. Don’t you worry, Kitten. I’ll put you right back. Elspeth extended one hand tentatively towards the Kitten; she did not stir. She poked her fingers through the soft fur of the Kitten’s belly. How did I do it, before? She slid her fingers inside the Kitten, who made a mew of protest and turned but did not wake. Elspeth trawled unimpeded through hot blood, organs, bones, muscles. She was groping for that snick of immateriality; her fingers would recognise the Kitten’s soul because it was made of the same stuff as Elspeth herself. Does it have a permanent location in the body? Or does it migrate? Last time it felt as though I’d hooked it with my finger. It was slippery like an avocado stone popping out. The Kitten moaned and curled up tighter. Sorry, Kitten. Sorry. Elspeth moved her hand higher, into the lungs, and the Kitten woke up.

Elspeth snatched her hand back. She can’t see you. But the Kitten was uneasy; she arched her back, looked around warily. She padded to the edge of the bed and listened. The flat was quiet; Julia and Valentina were out. Elspeth could hear Robert hoovering his kitchen. The Kitten circled and settled at the foot of the bed, front paws crossed, chin resting on them, eyes slitted. Elspeth sat beside her and waited.

A few minutes later the Kitten closed her eyes. Elspeth watched her sides rise and fall. The tip of her tail twitched. Gently. Elspeth stroked her head; she liked that when Valentina did it. Now it only made her flick her ears in annoyance.

The Kitten went back to sleep. Elspeth raked her fingers through the little white body in a quick swiping motion, the way the Kitten might bat at a toy. Something caught-the Kitten’s body slumped into itself like a cake collapsing-and Elspeth was holding a furious clawing, biting Kitten.

If she scratches me, can I heal? Elspeth imagined her ghost skin in tatters, and threw the Kitten onto the bed. They stared at each other. The Kitten hissed loudly. Elspeth was startled. If I can hear her..? She said, “It’s okay, Kitten,” and held out her hand. The Kitten backed away, hissing. She turned, jumped off the side of the bed and disappeared. Elspeth flew over the bed just in time to see a white haze dissipating by the bedside table.

What now? How can I put her back now? Elspeth thought of Valentina and despaired. She curled up next to the Kitten’s limp body. Come back, Kitten. I was only practising…Oh dear. The Kitten looked quite dead. Her eyes were half-open and the third eyelids had slid across. She looked like a feline alien. Her small pink tongue protruded, her head hung over her paws at an uncomfortable angle. I’m sorry, Kitten. I’m so, so sorry.

Where could she be? Was she even in the flat? Perhaps the Kitten had gone to prowl the back garden, or to be a little white cloud stalking the cemetery for the ghosts of sparrows and tiny frogs. Perhaps she would become a ghost kitten that haunted the dustbins of South Grove. Elspeth stroked the Kitten. Even her fur seemed to have lost its liveliness. She pushed her fingers into the Kitten’s side and was startled at the change: there was life in there, but it was the life of the things that break down the body. The micro-organisms that consume every dead thing had already been unleashed inside the Kitten.