The cabinet was stuffed with rows and rows of little bottles and cardboard packets. Thousands upon thousands of prescription pills. Creams and lotions. Cotton-wool pads and syringes wrapped in plastic. Bandages and scissors and vials of syrupy liquid. It was the world’s biggest first-aid kit. A fully stocked private pharmacy.

She reached out to touch a tall stack of identical white boxes. The stack wobbled and the boxes gave a soft rattle, like a warning.

Feeling distinctly uneasy, Emily dropped the towels back in the hamper. What was she thinking, sneaking around Nina’s bathroom and riffling through her stuff? She hadn’t been invited. She had no right.

Get out, she told herself, finally coming to her senses. You shouldn’t be here.

* * *

Convinced she’d been spotted, Emily had returned to the pool kitchen full of excuses and apologies, but Nina was too preoccupied with Aurelia’s bad mood and hadn’t even noticed her absence. Apparently, their morning had been a little tense; Aurelia had woken up fractious and twitchy, throwing her breakfast at the kitchen wall and slamming doors, all before the sun had fully risen, so Nina had invented a creative project designed to settle her down. The long dining-room table was covered with pens, paper, and assorted craft materials, and a banner hung from the roof of the pergola: five colorful drawings pegged on a line of string, spaced out among big bright letters. WELCOME HOME DADDY.

“I’ll take over from here, if you like,” Emily offered. Even though she hadn’t been discovered, she felt she ought to make up for her indiscretion.

Exhausted and grateful for a break, Nina nodded and disappeared back up to the house to fetch a selection of wines for dinner.

Emily pulled up a chair next to Aurelia and pointed at her picture. “Who’s this, then?” The drawing showed a small stick figure in a bright-pink dress. “Is that your mummy?”

Aurelia’s head bobbed up and down.

“Beautiful. And who’s that?” Next to the stick woman was a stick man with black hair and what looked like a suitcase. “This must be Daddy. Oh, well done. It’s a very good likeness.” Emily clapped enthusiastically.

Aurelia gave her a look that said, Chill out, it’s only a stick figure.

Emily pressed on, pointing to a pig and a horse floating near the top left of the picture. “And here we have Sebastien and Francis Bacon. Lovely. And this?” There was a third stick person with a thatch of yellow hair and a big red smile.

Aurelia thrust a skinny finger at Emily’s chest.

“Is that me? My goodness, I didn’t know I was so pretty.” Emily gave Aurelia’s shoulder a gentle pat, feeling pleased when she didn’t flinch. As long as Emily kept her touch light and didn’t overdo it, physical contact now seemed to be okay. “It’s a wonderful picture, sweetie, but I think you’ve forgotten someone. Where are you?”

A line appeared between Aurelia’s dark eyebrows. She pointed to a gray smudge in the right-hand corner.

Emily peered at the smudge. Underneath a mass of gray scribbles was the outline of yet another, smaller stick figure. “Oh dear, you’re all crossed out. Did you make a mistake? Never mind, let’s try again. I’ll help you.”

Aurelia huffed and slumped back in her chair.

Emily reached for a new piece of paper, then stopped. She looked back at the smudge. At the top, the lines of crayon were heavier and darker, and just above the faint figure she could almost make out a purple semicircle. At the bottom, underneath the figure, was a full circle drawn in blue. The crayon here had been pressed so hard that the paper had almost torn. Over the top of the smudge, just above the thicker gray lines, were two bright-yellow zigzags.

Aurelia hadn’t crossed herself out, Emily realized. It wasn’t a smudge. It was a cloud. The scribbles were rain. The blue bit at the bottom was a puddle, and the semicircle was an umbrella. The zigzags were lightning bolts. Aurelia had drawn a storm.

It reminded Emily of something, but she couldn’t think what … and then a memory came to her, so sharp it almost physically hurt. She was in Dr. Forte’s office, chubby and knock-kneed, sitting in front of a round table covered with butcher’s paper. Pencils, markers, and small pots of paint sat in front of her. Her hands were covered in black ink.

Great work, Emily. Can you tell me a bit about your picture?

On the paper, a swirl of black lines.

What did you draw?

The walls were white. The windows and doors were open to let in a breeze.

How does it make you feel?

Dr. Forte smiled and raised her hand for a high five. Swoosh, slap. Emily’s palm came away red and stinging.

A whack on Emily’s arm brought her back to the pool, to the kitchen, to the dining-room table. She looked down. Aurelia was staring up at her with a fierce expression.

“Sorry, sweetie.” Emily paused. She felt dizzy, disorientated. “Sorry. I was miles away. Here, uh, let’s draw something together.” Replacing the storm picture with a clean sheet of paper, she pulled the box of crayons closer.

Without taking her eyes from Emily’s face, Aurelia snatched up an orange crayon and pressed hard onto the paper.

Emily took a deep breath to ease the chill that had just crawled under her skin. Another memory: Dr. Forte again, but this time Juliet was in the room, too. A hushed conversation was being conducted over her head. Her suffering is buried in her subconscious, Dr. Forte was saying, it’s part of her now. Emily remembered crying that night, sobbing to Juliet that there was something wrong with her, something rotten and defective inside that made her do bad things. But Juliet had held her close and explained about the hidden memories. It’s not your fault, Juliet said, and stroked Emily’s hair until she fell asleep.

Another slap brought her back to the kitchen. Aurelia was glaring again. She stabbed a finger at her new picture. Emily looked down and saw a big square house with blue shutters and a red roof. Above it, a giant butterfly hovered among silver clouds. For some reason, Emily’s eyes filled with tears.

“I love it,” she said, tracing the outline of the house with her finger. “The shutters are like the ones on your house. Very French. Très bien.”

Aurelia looked up sharply. The look on her face was one of recognition mixed with wary enthusiasm, like a student too shy to raise her hand in class.

Emily’s heart melted. Nina must have been teaching her some French. “You know what that means, do you? Clever girl. How about this: tu es très douée. Do you know what douée means?”

Aurelia remained silent, but her anger was gone. Her usual scowl rearranged itself into a small, sweet smile. It was beautiful.

“It means,” Emily said, tapping Aurelia on the nose, “you’re very talented.”

“That’s right, she is,” said Nina, hurrying back down the steps and into the kitchen, a stack of wine bottles in her arms. “My straight-A student, aren’t you, Strawberry? Give it a few years and we’ll be fighting off the fancy universities with a stick.”

University? Emily looked away. Aurelia was a socially impaired mute with a serious medical condition. It was hard to imagine her surviving a day at primary school, let alone anything beyond.

“You don’t think so?” Nina said, catching Emily’s expression. She pushed the last of the bottles into the fridge and swung the door shut. “Mark my words, when the time comes, this one will outdo us all. Won’t you, bubba? Just as long as you keep up with your medication.”

At the sink, Nina filled a glass with water from the tap. Pulling two small white tablets from her pocket, she crossed to the table and placed both the glass and the pills in front of Aurelia. Emily watched as Aurelia placed the tablets on her tongue and washed them down with several gulps of water.

“Good girl. And don’t forget your sunscreen.” Nina turned back to the kitchen, sweeping a slender wrist across her forehead. Her cheeks were pink and glistening with perspiration. “Right then, Strawberry, chop-chop. Let’s get a few more pictures done so we can hang them all up. Emily, what on earth’s the matter?”

“What?” Emily looked up and realized she’d been frowning. “Oh, no, nothing. I was just trying to think what else needs doing, but, honestly, the place looks great.”

“Great isn’t good enough,” Nina said, her back turned. “It has to be perfect.”

* * *

After Nina declared the banner to be finished, she hustled Emily and Aurelia to the guesthouse. Earlier that morning, Yves had delivered about a dozen more parcels—some big, some small—and lots of flat, squashy packets, leaving them in a pile on the steps of the guesthouse. Nina had barely even got them through the door before she started ripping through the tape of each one, tearing at the cardboard, and throwing little polystyrene shapes into the air like confetti. She pulled out new artwork, ornaments, bedding, toys, and lots and lots of new clothes.

“Whoa,” said Emily. “It’s like Oxford Circus just vomited all over the hallway.”