And floating through darkness, the faint sound of a clarinet. Gemini lifted her head for just a moment, listening to the ephemeral notes dance around the sounds of the night. In her state of half-waking it was simply a strange composition to her; probably Atlas having a late night rehearsal. She didn't put it down as unusual, although it was. Her mind was just the music, and exhaustion. Her head drifted down into the pillow; her eyes wandered the scattered toys on her bedroom floor and she imagined them dancing as the music lulled her to sleep.

She heard it in her dreams, and it was most unlike anything she had ever heard Atlas play. Another world had opened up from whence the music came; she felt it prising a gulf between body and soul and pushing, widening until her whole being was rushing to pieces. The drumbeat of her heart throbbed sharp and loud.

Light slanted across her ceiling an instant later. Outside a blackbird trilled, another chirped in response. Conversation in song. And then the throbbing came again, this time at her bedroom door.

“Gemini!” It was her father, Atlas, frantic. “Get up, quickly!”

She rarely heard him sound so distressed. Leaping out of bed she ran out into the hall, still in her pyjamas, where her pallid father stood.

“What's wrong, Dad?”

“It's – it's your mother,” he gasped.

Gemini bolted past before he could grab her and dashed to the master bedroom. The bed was empty, but for her mother's nightdress which lay as if she'd vanished from it.

“Gemini -” Atlas caught up and tried to pull her away.

“This must be a prank, Dad,” she said. “Mum's just hiding somewhere, right?”

“I've looked everywhere,” Atlas said quietly.

This time he didn't even bother holding her back. Gemini walked into the room, slowly, taking it all in. She soon knew why Atlas had been so panicked. It wasn't like Lettie had simply gone to the shops, leaving her nightdress under the duvet for some strange reason – the bedroom had a weird aura. Emptiness, as if she'd been stripped from existence. And these little clues that she's once been here; the dress, the indentation on the pillow, the assortment of makeup and jewellery on the dresser... they only took the void to new heights.

She jumped out of her skin when Atlas grabbed her shoulder to kneel beside her.

“Gem, I know this is all very strange for you,” he said, a distinct quiver in his lilting Ulster tones. “And it is for me. It's not like your mother to just disappear like this. If she's not back in a few hours and nobody's seen her, I'm going to call the police.”

“Call the police now,” Gemini protested. “She's gone and they can find her!”

“It's too early, Gem,” Atlas said. “We could be overreacting; she might walk through that door right now and ask us why we look so upset. Now come on. I'll – I'll make you some breakfast and then get calling around friends and family.”

Gemini nodded. When Atlas was at the door, “Dad?”

He looked back at her. She was startled by the deep pain in his eyes; it was unnatural. “Yes?”

“I want Mum to come back. This is weird.”

“I know.” Atlas held his hand out to her. “Come on. We'll be alright.”

She went to join him but a chirping outside the window caught her attention. Gemini spun round. A blackbird, eyeing her and singing against the bright yellow-green late summer morning. She watched it, captivated.

“Dad -”

“Just come downstairs, Gemini!”

Her father's exasperated tone was the second unnatural aspect of his behaviour that morning. She took one last look at the blackbird and left the bedroom behind, with her mother's dress still lying between the sheets.

Atlas didn't open the Three Moons that day. The jazz club that he and Lettie founded together, then found love in, was silent for the first night in its seven year history. Gemini sat on the front step for an hour, sipping a can of Coke while Atlas did a door to door on the high street where they lived, asking every shop owner and resident whether his wife had been seen. She didn't even need to be with him to know that there hadn't been a sighting. His shoulders, usually so broad and confident, sagged lower and lower the more people he asked, and he looked miserable when he finally gave up and returned.

She followed him inside and scribbled while listening to him calling everyone he could think of. His own parents, his two brothers and three sisters, some of the cousins he was closer to, and his grandfather. Some of the regulars who knew both him and Lettie quite well. The hours ticked by; noon, one o'clock, two o'clock, three... Lettie's mother was understandably frantic as she hadn't seen her either, and if her poor father had been alive! Her seven sisters and one brother had heard nothing from her; the last contact had been three days ago and she'd seemed happy as ever. Uncles, aunts, cousins and friends – nobody had heard anything.

At about eight o'clock, the sun was beginning to cast long shadows through the club, framed by halos of golden light. The street outside exhaled summer's warmth.

Gemini admired her latest drawing – Lettie on the piano, herself on sax and Atlas on his clarinet, the air around them resplendent with musical notes.

“Yes... okay... I'll let you know,” Atlas murmured. He was on the phone to Lettie's great aunt Amalda. “Aye... yes, she's fine. Okay... bye for now.”

He hung up and sighed, slumped over the bar. Gemini watched through the corner of her eye. Never had she known Atlas to be so despondent.