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They are driving out for guising when they see her. It is the narrow part of the road that cuts through the hem of the forest. Some firs arch so densely here they block the night sky. Lauren sits high in the passenger seat, her elasticated gym shoes swinging over cans of Kick and a chewed-up tennis ball. She has braided her hair and wears it in a circle like a garland. Niall, her father, is steering their dented pickup and listening to Aerosmith. It smells of dog fur even though Jameson isn’t in the truck. ‘Is that lipstick?’ her father asks. ‘No, it’s face paint,’ Lauren says, lying. It is the one time of year she can wear something of her mother’s. It feels precious. Clandestine. She holds a pumpkin-shaped bucket on her knees. Her face is powdered white except for the deep-red trickle at the corner of her mouth. There is no reason it can’t be face paint. Her dress is black with a cream lace collar. They bought it for her grandmother’s funeral eleven months ago, when she was nine and a half. Her arms stick out of their sleeves, reminding her that next year the dress might be too small. Her father says next year maybe they’ll stop. But for now, she is a vampire. She likes this outfit and because they live in a tiny village no one can tease her, unlike at school. In her pocket, there’s a piece of antler that folds out into a knife. The headlights cast two white beams into the black. Up ahead there is a kink in the single-track lane, a passing place, its diamond sign growing luminous as they approach. Lauren sees a skinny figure standing in the scrub of the verge, enveloped in a large white dressing gown. ‘Jesus,’ her father says as they bump past. ‘Who’s that?’ Lauren cranes back at the dark road. The trees are thinning out. 'Who’s what?’ replies her father and turns up the music. Lauren puts her hand in the dress pocket and runs a finger across the ridged antler, then along the metal strip that is the edge of the blade. She has been doing this recently. Soon they break out of the forest altogether and speed down the hill to Clavanmore: four houses dotted along the road; a constellation of lights among the dark fields. Niall parks near her friend Billy Matheson’s house, at the disused phone box. Its bare bulb is still working, illuminating one corner of the pavement. Weeds are growing through the cracked tarmac and up under the glass. Lauren watches the wing mirror for several minutes, until she sees the small figure of Billy and his frost-coloured shorts. His mother Kirsty and his little brother Lewis follow behind, walking downhill from their home along the narrow edge of the road. Billy has fake blood smeared over his face and down the front of his long- sleeved goalie’s jersey, under his coat. His hair stands up in gory spikes. ‘What’ve you been doing to that football strip?’ Lauren’s father says flatly, slamming the pickup door. ‘He’s a zombie.’ Kirsty’s voice catches in the iced air. She is wearing a yellow and navy Puffa jacket that reminds Lauren of a bumblebee. Her cornflake-blonde hair is mostly tucked under a bobble hat. It looks cosy. ‘Red food colouring,’ Kirsty says, smiling at Lauren, her eyes small and bright. ‘Lewis here is a little monster, aren’t you?’ The toddler is wearing a dinosaur onesie over some bulky underclothes, his chubby cheeks flushed. ‘You can say that again,’ says Niall, with a sting of humour in his near- expressionless face.