This was all wrong, of course. The rules were very clear about this – he never brought their bodies back to Fiddler’s Mill. It was unthinkable. The fact that he had come this far with it only demonstrated that the entire evening was a mistake, that there was something discordant in the night air. Abruptly, he wasn’t the barghest at all, he wasn’t the wolf, he was just a man with a knife and a sleeve turning stiff and tacky with his own blood. If he wasn’t the wolf, then was he anything at all?

He slammed the rear doors shut and got back into the van. He drove. Once he was back within his woods, he knew that his mind would clear. When he walked back over his graves, and felt their hearts singing there, things would seem normal again.

But when he got back to Fiddler’s Mill, he found his way thwarted; the young people had sprawled their dwellings over one of the main access roads. He could see their lights and hear their voices, and a slow kind of panic began to grow in his chest, the panic of a prey animal, realizing that they had made a mistake, that they were trapped. He couldn’t get to his woods, he couldn’t get to the house. He was bleeding. He had brought a body back with him. This had to be where it all ended.

Michael was leaning over the steering wheel, convinced that the walls were closing in on him, that he could smell the musty cupboard and feel his sister’s hands taking hold of him, when a white face appeared at the open window.

‘Michael? What’s the matter? Are you … are you bleeding?’

It was Colleen. She leaned through the window into the cab, her blonde hair falling forward over her face. In the light from the campfires, her hair glittered gold and copper.

‘I had an accident.’ For some reason, the pure concern on her face had chased away his anxiety. Suddenly it was easier to think. ‘I was out clearing away rubbish for some people. You know, just a dirty job to make some easy money.’ He made himself smile. ‘But there was broken glass in the dump, didn’t see it until it was too late.’ His arm, when he held it up, looked awful, and he saw her recoil. ‘It’s not as bad as it looks, honestly.’

‘Jesus, Michael, I think maybe you should go to the hospital.’ But she said it doubtfully. No one at Fiddler’s Mill was very keen on hospitals. The hospital might find out what drugs you’d been taking; the hospital might try to contact your parents, or the police. ‘Here, come out here where I can see it.’ She held up a plastic battery-powered torch – a lot of the young people carried them, for the woods at night.