I left the house to find it was somewhere around dawn. There’d been no sign of Eliot as I dressed, or as I found my way back down to the first floor, or as I pushed open the heavy front door. I kept waiting to be called back, but there was no hindrance. Outside, the pale sun made my eyes hurt and the fresh air was startling. I didn’t know whether to laugh or shout or weep. I didn’t know how I felt. But I took a deep breath and stepped out onto the driveway as before, this time in the opposite direction. As I walked back across the lush parkland—rather tentatively, pathetically unused to the outdoors—my fear returned, like the first day I’d gone to the house. My sneakers felt alien on my feet. The silk shirt I’d found in the wardrobe was softer than anything I’d ever worn before. I felt lik
