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The tight passageways below were already plunged into darkness. But the chandelier still held a faint milky glitter as it caught the last of the waning light.
    She glanced into the library as she went by. The empty Day Boxes were stored there. They were made of a kind of cardboard that was almost as strong as wood. Her mum ordered them from a special shop and they were delivered twice a month.
    The library was another thing that Daisy was afraid of.
    There were hundreds of dark gaps in the shelves where books had been removed. Daisy knew if she slid her hand into any one of them, her fingers would meet nothing more extraordinary than the back of the bookcase. But what if they didn’t? What if her fingers just kept going, and then her hand and then her whole arm? What if there was nothing back there except
nothingness
?
    Daisy hurried to her bedroom and dragged a chair over to block the door. She sat on her bed with her knees pulled up tight to her chin and her arms wrapped around her legs.
    How could her mum do the Day Box if she wasn’t here?
    Her mum was very particular about the boxes and what was put inside them. On the day she turned five, for example, Daisy had wanted to put a slice of her birthday cake into the Day Box. It had been a beautiful cake. Her mum had decorated it with real flowers and tiny animals made of frosting. But her mum had explained that you couldn’t put food into the Day Box or anything that would rot and start to smell bad.
    â€œAnd nothing that will die,” she had said gently when Daisy once suggested including a stag beetle, which was lurching down the path.
    Daisy had always been interested in beetles and other insects. There were millions and millions of them, although you mostly never saw them. They lived in a secret world. It was huge yet invisible. There were doors to this world everywhere: in the cracks of the floorboards, on the underside of leaves, although the doors were too tiny for humans. Daisy squatted next to ant nests, magnifying glass in hand, watching where the marching lines went in and out of the earth. But magnifying glasses are good at making things bigger, not smaller, and Daisy would always be too enormous to ever escape into the insect world.
    She lost a lot of interest in her mum’s Day Boxes after she found out that you couldn’t put bugs into them. Instead her mum usually chose rather ordinary things such as books she had read, items of clothing, and other bits and bobs.
    Daisy lay down on her bed still fully clothed. Slowly she pulled the blanket over her head. She rested her cheek in her hand and tried to sleep.
    Mum will come back,
she told herself.
Sometime in the night, I will open my eyes and there she will be.

DAY TWO

SIX

    Waking up alone the next morning was by far the worst thing that had ever happened to Daisy. She lay half paralyzed by misery, her eyes filling with tears. There was a possibility that her mum had returned and hadn’t wanted to wake her up. She could be downstairs getting breakfast ready or preparing the schoolwork for the day.
    But in her heart, Daisy knew this wasn’t true.
    She got up slowly and went into the Portrait Gallery, determined to ignore Little Charles. She wasn’t in the mood for his demands.
    â€œI found my hoop!” he cried. “Where is Minette?”
    Daisy paused, despite herself. “Minette? Is she your sister?”
    â€œNot her!” His voice was an indignant squeak. “I don’t want
her
! She’s just a girl and my father says girls are a waste of space. Minette is my dog . . . ”
    â€œI can’t look for her now,” Daisy said. “I’ll look later. I promise, Little Charles.”
    She hurried by the General, keeping her eyes away. But she could tell he was watching her, his eyes as bright as the row of medals pinned to his scarlet chest. The house was completely silent. Fear rose in Daisy’s throat. It felt the same as wanting to be