‘Elvina, open the door this minute!’ The door handle rattled ominously, but the door didn’t budge. There was no way anyone was getting into the attic bedroom, not with the heavy oak dresser pushed right up against the door. Elvina cowered in the corner of the room, her wet hair dripping droplets of icy-cold water down her back. Her dress was torn, the bodice ripped open to expose her pale flesh. There were vivid stains where the pastor’s fat fingers had pinched her; her head rang still from the stinging blow he had dealt her after she tried to bite him.
‘You will open this door, Elvina, or, God help me I shall have it broken down!’
The voice outside the bedroom door belonged to her grandmother – the one person she feared as much as the pastor. They worked their evil together, the two of them, always in the name of God, so that the whole brainwashed community hung from their every word. Georgina Warburton was a formidable woman – stout and sharp-tongued, with a heart that Elvina knew to be so cold it was as if she wasn’t human at all.

‘I am warning you, Elvina!’ Georgina shrieked. ‘The ceremony is not complete. You must be cleansed of the evil – or do you want to share in your sister’s fate?’
At that moment, Elvina would have gladly given her life to be with her twin again. Her heart ached with the raw pain of losing her ‘other half’ without even the chance to say goodbye. An agonised sob tore from her lips and she crumpled in on herself, rocking back and forth in anguish.
‘Let me speak to her, Mother.’
There was no comfort to be found in her father’s voice, either. Walter was as much a pawn in his mother’s hands as any of the faithful sheep who practiced Pastor Tyrell’s barbaric take on Christianity.
‘Come on now, Elvina. Open the door,’ Walter cajoled. ‘Let me in. I can’t talk to you through the door, now can I?’

Elvina continued to rock, her fist stuffed into her mouth to stop her sobbing aloud. If she closed her eyes, she could see herself back in that room again, with her father standing by and watching – as he surely must have stood by and watched them do the same to Isabella. The thought that her sister had endured this horror before she was dragged screaming away – never to return, despite Walter’s false promises – brought bile rushing up into Elvina’s mouth. It was inhuman, the things that the pastor did whilst claiming to do God’s work. Elvina had studied the Bible at length – at her grandmother’s insistence – and nowhere could she find mention of the vile acts practiced by the Church of the Glorious and Great God.
As footsteps faded away down the stairs, Elvina unfurled herself and tiptoed across the room to listen by the door. She could hear nothing, but that didn’t mean that someone wasn’t waiting on the other side for her to throw caution to the wind and try to escape. Not that she was stupid enough to try it. Instead, she stripped off her dress – torn when she made her bid for freedom – and pulled on a pair of slacks and a jumper, shivering as she tried to wring some of the water out of her long chestnut hair. Her teeth were chattering still with shock.

The attic was at the very top of the house – three storeys up – and so the last thing Elvina expected was for someone to try to climb in through the window. She heard the dull thud against the wall as the ladder was raised, but took little notice, feeling almost safe barricaded inside the room. She lay curled up on Isabella’s bed, clutching in her hands the one photograph – of the two of them together – that Georgina hadn’t burnt in a ritual ‘cleansing of evil’. Tracing Izzy’s face with her fingers, Elvina allowed the tears to fall freely.
When the sash window was hurled open, Elvina screamed, cowering back on the bed and dropping the photograph. It slipped down the back of the bedside chest as the pastor heaved his bulky body through the window and into the room.
‘There is evil in this house and it is my duty to cleanse you of it!’ Tyrell bellowed, slamming the window closed again. ‘I will exorcise the devil from your soul, Elvina.’ He shoved the dresser out of the way of the door with little effort, such was the strength behind the great monster of a man. ‘Will you come willingly, or do I have to drag you?’ he asked, turning on Elvina with a malicious glint in his eye.
Elvina folded her arms across her chest in a gesture of defiance. She tried not to show the pastor that she was afraid of him, but her heart was pounding so loudly she felt sure that he must be able to hear it.
‘Very well,’ Tyrell said, smiling maliciously. He crossed the room in two long strides and seized Elvina by the shoulders, pinning down her arms as he manhandled her, struggling as best she could, towards the door.
It was no accident when Tyrell knocked Elvina’s feet from under her as they descended the steep wooden staircase. She tumbled and rolled down the remaining stairs, landing in a bruised and shaken heap at the foot of the attic staircase. Tyrell didn’t so much as spare a thought of concern for her; wordlessly, he hauled her back to her feet and continued the descent down to the ground floor of the house.