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below caught my eye. In the moonlight I could see a small, cloaked figure running away from the house towards the river. It was a girl, probably about twelve years old. Her long cloak billowed out around her as she ran. I assumed she must have been one of the murder mystery dinner guests, although I couldn’t remember seeing her earlier. As I watched her move through the garden a cold shudder ran through me, and my mind took me back to the sensation of lying on the hallway floor and feeling someone watch over me.
    I tried to shake it off as I watched the girl run up to the riverbank and untie a boat. I thought it strange as I couldn’t remember seeing a post to tie a boat to as I’d walked along the river that day. And as I watched the girl hurriedly untie the boat, I realised I hadn’t seen another boat on the river either. I briefly wondered if she’d rowed the boat from upstream somewhere, docking it by the house for some reason.
    Curiously, I watched as the girl waded into the river and began to push the boat away from the bank in a hurry. Her heavy cloak spread out around her in the water, dragging her back towards the bank. She turned and looked back at the house, as if she was looking at it for the last time. The hood of her cloak shadowed her face and I couldn’t see her features properly. Instead, the space where her face should have been just looked like a grey void. The girl quickly turned away again and began to clamber into the boat, struggling with her heavy cloak as she did so. Once she was in the boat she took hold of an oar. As the girl began to row herself down the river, away from the house, the moonlight bounced off the name written on the helm of the boat.
    The Lady of Shalott
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    Friday 12th September 1952
    The new girl’s name is Tilly. Tilly the grey girl at the attic window. Apparently she’s our age but she looks like she should be bunking in with the first years. No one knows why she’s allowed to sleep upstairs with the prefects and why she’s allowed to skip Games. Yesterday she was allowed to sit in the library and read for the whole afternoon whilst the rest of us had to run around in the rain battling it out with hockey sticks. It’s not fair. Lavinia complained to Mrs Taylor, ‘Why should we have to risk our health in this weather when she gets to sit in the warm? Why’s she so special?’ But Mrs Taylor just told Lavinia to stop being bitter and to stop complaining or she’ll be sent out to weed the grounds next time it rains like it did yesterday.
    Lavinia hates it when people tell her off. She blamed it all on Tilly. Last night, at wash time, Lavinia grabbed my hand. ‘Come with me. We’re going to find the new girl.’ Even though Tilly sleeps upstairs with the prefects, she still has to wash on our floor. Lavinia cornered her in the washroom and told everyone else to leave. ‘But you lot can stay here,’ she said to me, Sybil and Margot. Everyone else left and Lavinia made sure the door was closed shut before she started to quiz Tilly. ‘Who are you anyway? What makes you so special? Why do you never speak? And you’re so small, I bet you’re not even in a brassiere yet …’ Then she snatched Tilly’s towel away from her so she stood there stark naked in front of us. Lavinia started sniggering but me, Sybil and Margot just looked away. Then Tilly started crying, she snatched her towel back and ran for the door. I just let her through without stopping her, although Lavinia scolded me afterwards for letting her go.
    We’ve been doing the Rituals every night this week. Last night the sky was too clouded to really see the moon, so we had to guess at its position in the sky. We chalked the pentagram on the floor and stood at four of the corners. Shrouded in our winter cloaks, we lit candles and chanted. Lavinia’s convinced that summoning the Goddess will help us. She says it will help