Emrallie held her arm above the elbow. Sorrel shook her off.

“Don’t make things harder,” Emrallie said.

Outside Caroni’s hut, Emrallie handed her the PlAK but not the charger. Then she led Sorrel away from the trees and the huts and into another narrow cave with weathered planks of wood across the entrance. She pulled out two of them. “Go inside. The PlAK will give you light after nightfall. There’s a bucket for waste.”

“I thought you would be my friend,” Sorrel said.

“You don’t know me. Caroni is a good Zorah. She’ll do the right thing, you’ll see. I’m sorry about your mother, but forty-five…” Her voice trailed off. She gave Sorrel a little push into the cave and hammered the wood back in place. Through the gaps between them, Sorrel could still see Emrallie’s shape.

“My mother was the one who put me out,” Emrallie said, her face close to the planks.

“I want my backpack,” Sorrel said.

“Nextnight,” Emrallie said. She turned and walked away.

Sorrel sank to the floor of the cave near the nailed-up entrance. She breathed in the outside air, stared at the lighter darkness of the forest. The floor of the cave was dry and smooth, as if it had been created by water. She lay down, knees to chest.

After a few minutes, she decided she was not a child and sat up and pulled the PlAK onto her lap. She turned on the light and swung it around the small cave, then got to her feet to find the spot where the signal was best. She sat and looked at last for Sesame’s message.

“Where are you?” her friend had written, along with a string of emojis.

She learned that Sesame’s family had disobeyed the mandatory evacuation order, because her mother didn’t think she could walk anywhere – she had not left the house in years. Sesame and Bracken were planning to leave her behind. Triage.

Sesame was not online, but Sorrel wrote back, telling of their journey. “You were right, Ses. There are Tribals in the mountains. If you find the cable car line, maybe you can join us. Take your PlAK with you. I don’t know about Bracken, though. There are no males here.” She wanted to tell her about Bibi’s departure, but the words wouldn’t come.

She used the PlAK until the battery died. The signal was intermittent, and the screen froze often, but the SATMAP found a narrow stripe of green at over 2000 metres north of Bana, and she thought it had to be Jiba. There was no sign of the river. Presumably the image had been taken before it broke out. She wondered why more people had not found the ravine and decided that it was perhaps because they were not able to rappel down the cliff, and the other entrance was far away or hidden.