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moved in at once. This would be my room for the summer.
    After unpacking, I knelt on the window-seat and found, as I had hoped when I had noted that it was without an air-conditioning unit, that the window slipped upwards easily. There was a screen on the outside and a cool breeze from the lake immediately wafted into the room.
    There was an old-fashioned electric fan on the dressing-table; I flicked the switch and it hummed into action; picking up speed and revolving slowly. On the opposite side of the dressing-table was a vase of fresh flowers. The oddity surprised me for a moment; there had been no flowers in the master bedroom.
    With a mental shrug, I tossed back the patchwork quilt covering the bed. A white envelope lay on the pillow. I was beginning to be familiar with those envelopes by now.
    Â 
    Dear Rosemary,
    I thought you might prefer this room. I know I would, if I were in your shoes. It’s where I put my favorite guests.
    Look in the bedside tabouret for a little nightcap. It’s
homemade—Pixie Toller’s specialty. (You’ll meet her soon, if you haven’t already.)
    Have a nice summer—
    Â 
    Nancy
    Â 
    The tabouret held a small decanter labelled elderberry brandy and a plastic box containing thin crispy vanilla biscuits.
    Shamelessly ignoring the fact that I had already cleaned my teeth and had no intention of cleaning them again, I partook of both. Both were delicious.
    I slid into bed and turned out the light. In the darkness I was conscious of the small night sounds outside, no longer drowned by the noise of the air-conditioner. The wind rustled the trees, grasshoppers sang, frogs croaked softly; a soothing and pleasing lullaby.
    Just as I drifted off to sleep, I identified the disquieting element I had subconsciously noticed in the telephone list. The order of importance was wrong.
    I was a woman on her own with two children, one of whom had a broken arm.
    Why, then, did the Fire Department lead the list of emergency numbers instead of the Doctor?

Chapter 4
    I t wasn’t the dreams that were the nightmare, it was the awakening. In sleep, John was there again. We were laughing together, planning a holiday, talking about a future beyond that. We turned to each other with love and joy …
    I don’t know what woke me. I opened my eyes to bright sunlight and the unfamiliar room and slowly the joy drained out of me and the bleak grey sadness took its place. John was dead and I was left to face another day.
    There was no point in lying there. I threw back the sheet and automatically walked over to the window. I could see now that my room was right at the back of the house, over the kitchen. Beneath the window was the slanted wooden bulkhead door which opened into the cellar. Beyond that was the spacious back yard, then the thick ring of woodland, mostly pines and maples, and beyond that the glittering blue of Edgemarsh Lake. The sky was
clear and cloudless, the birds sang. It was a beautiful day in a beautiful country.
    And what should I do in Illyria?
    â€œNo! No! Stop it!” The childrens’ voices shrieked out in anguish from the kitchen below me. I ran downstairs, not waiting to put on my dressing-gown, terrified of what I might find.
    I burst into the kitchen and was relieved to find Tessa and Timothy safe, although furious and upset. There was a delicious fragrance in the air, which seemed to be part of the problem.
    â€œMummy! Mummy!” Tessa threw herself into my arms, sobbing. “We were cooking breakfast. We wanted to surprise you. We were going to bring you breakfast in bed.”
    â€œWe made scrambled eggs—” Timothy glowered. “Only that rotten old Errol got up on the table and ate them all!”
    â€œOh, darlings—” I tried not to laugh, as much a hysterical reaction as Tessa’s tears. “Never mind. We’ll cook some more and we’ll be more careful this time. Remember Nancy told us that Errol eats