Welcome to case closed. You're listening to The Shadow House by Anna Downs, narrated by Natasha Beaumont and the author.

Prolog. The bones come first, a gift but nothing wanted. Next, a doll, a likeness, a promise. And the blood

marks the choice. It finds a face and then you know. Help, I need help. That's what he said. I remember

it clearly. Voices in the night and footsteps soft and slow on a carpet of green

on the grassy path that goes up to the blue sky and the diamond moon and the place where the birds fly north.

That's where it happened.

A noise.

No, two noises, one after the other.

First, quiet, then loud.

Oh, there was so much blood.

I didn't know what to do.

I didn't know how to help. I remember all of it only then I forget. The rules

though. I won't forget those.

Listen to me carefully. Repeat after me.

Bones, doll, blood.

That's how it goes.

Things arrive and then a magic trick.

Here one minute, gone the next.

No one knows where he went.

No one except the birds. They know they saw everything. It wasn't his fault. It couldn't be stopped. Things arrive and then they take you.

Alex And then they take you. Alex, Chapter 1

Okay kids, I brought the car to a stop and peered out the windscreen.

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