Human life has absented itself here. The mountains seem to reject the living breath within their territory. Eyes, tear-filled in the wind, look through a blurred pane at ranges of peaks, summits, trees, grass and cloud. If you step out of this perimeter the precipice drops steeply into the valley. The ledge on which they have rested is safe, but only temporarily. The children are enclosed in a world of tall grass which presses sharp, keen-edged blades against their faces and limbs, clouding their eyes with a hazy confusion of whirling images compounded of the closeness of flighting birds. Wings almost touch their cheeks. They feel the harsh touch of swaying columns of mana. They smell the tang of crushed grass underfoot. Their tongues are muted by terror. They feel that the confrontation with unknown mysteries is imminent. The strong odour of decay and disintegration beckons them to cross a frontier of sharp green stakes. Only serried rows of grass separate them from the revelation.

Their voices weave their motets in the wind. Tremulous whispers are bruited about this green, swaying wall. They have wandered too far from the others, too far from the safety of friends who had halted, resting on the rocky ledge.

‘We’re lost.’ There is fear in their voices.

‘Listen. Voices. Can you hear them?’

‘No. I can hear nothing. They’re not even searching for us.’

‘There’s no path back. How can we find our way? Listen.’

‘Louder. Louder. Call out their names.’

Only the sound of wind and of water streaking the rock faces, dripping from secret sources high, high up in the mountains. The tough blades of mana grass rasping like stiff silk in the wind. Birds fly high above their heads, swoop down and are borne up again to glide in currents of air, drifting, devoid of conscious volition. Their voices emerge out of the silence.

‘We made a path through the grass … it’s trampled … the trail will guide us.’

‘Look, my arms and legs are grazed … this mana grass cuts like knife blades.’

‘We were safe with the others. Now we are alone. We shouldn’t have wandered away from them.’

‘When we go back shall we tell the others?’

‘If we do, will they believe us?’

‘Let’s find out for ourselves, once and for all, what it is all about. Are you afraid? Wait. I must see. And you? Muriel? Grace? Nanda? Do you want to see? We’re free. There’s no one to forbid us. There are no rules, no one to make us obey them. Come with me.’

‘It’s … I know it’s death. It’s there, hidden for a long, long time in the grass. No one will discover. The grass will be set on fire and the body will char and be ash …’