‘What would have happened if he had?’

She laughs. ‘What do you think?’

‘I honestly don’t know. All you said when I went home on New Year’s Eve is that it was dangerous.’

Actually, that’s not true. Esen told me the story about her cousin’s mate seeing her on the Pier, didn’t she?

I guess I just want to know if that was a coincidence. Not that I’m hoping I’ll see anyone. Or maybe I am.

Maybe I’m thinking that if I hang around near Roedean, I might see Poppy.

Just once.

Just for a second.

‘It’s dangerous because people only see us how we looked before, when it’s their time.’ Dev waits for me to meet her gaze in the mirror then goes on. ‘So if my old history teacher had recognised me at the station that day, he would have known something was wrong.’

‘Wrong?’ I ask, stomping after her as she walks to the rail and puts the dress back.

I wish she’d stay still.

‘Yeah.’ She turns to look at me with a curious frown, no doubt trying to suss out if I’m joking. When she realises that I’m not she nods at me, her eyes wide. ‘Why do you think it would be a bad thing if he recognised me?’

It takes me a moment and when I finally realise what she’s getting at, I shake my head and curse myself for being so dense. ‘Because if he recognised you that would have meant that it was his time.’

She holds her finger up and gives me a look as if to say, There it is.

‘But what does it matter?’ I shrug. ‘He was going to die anyway.’

‘Because,’ Dev says, making the word sound about a minute long as she takes another dress off the rail and looks at it before pulling a face and putting it back. ‘It messes with the natural order of things. Like.’ She turns on her heels to face me. ‘What if he had recognised me that day and keeled over at the shock of seeing the girl in his history class who’s been dead for eleven years?’

‘Maybe that’s how he was going to die, though?’

‘Maybe, but what if he was supposed to be hit by a bus two hours later, saw me, and died of a heart attack instead?’ She raises her right shoulder and lets it drop again. ‘Seeing me disrupted the chain of events.’

‘Like the butterfly effect,’ I say, remembering what Mr Moreno told us when we were discussing climate change after our visit to the wind farm. Apparently, some scientists believe that the ripple effect of just one butterfly dying could be far-reaching enough to alter the course of history forever.