‘Do I have to believe it’ll work before it does?’

‘It helps. There are three reasons to do something, anything. The most obvious is that you know that it will work. You have done it before, and the outcome every time is the same. Then there is a belief that it will work. You have seen it done, you have been shown how to do it, though you have never done it yourself. And then there is the third way.’

She waited. And waited. ‘Crows?’

‘Hope,’ he said. ‘You hope it will work. You have no idea how it might be accomplished, but you need it to work so very badly.’

‘So all I have to do is hope?’

‘It is all you ever have to do.’

‘A world can’t run on wishes. It can’t.’

‘Surprise yourself,’ he said. ‘Do you want it to be true?’

‘I do. Fuck, yes.’ A talent, once latent and now woken, was poised on the tip of her tongue and the tips of her fingers, ready for her to speak and shape it into being.

He laughed. ‘Then make it true.’

She looked at the black smear in front of Crows, the way it slowly crisped and crumbled at the edges, falling like soot but melting before it reached the ground. It was his shadow, dissolving in the sunshine.

Mary took a deep breath, stuck her tongue between her teeth and wiped her hand as if she was clearing condensation from a window pane. The image was so strong that she was on the top deck of a bus, night outside, and using her sleeve to scrub the sheen of water away so she could see out.

She pulled down mist, not darkness.

It swirled about her hand, tiny tornadoes of cold steam that floated off on the shore-side breeze.

‘Interesting,’ said Crows. ‘But ill-disciplined. Try again.’

She wreathed herself with fog, and whichever way she turned she just produced more of it. She ran along the shingle beach like she was laying down a smoke screen, then ran back through the fog bank she’d created, dragging it with her. She sprinted past Crows, dancing around him, then on up the beach to weave through the trees.

When she finally stopped, the air was thick. Tendrils of vapour curled and twisted, and the wind only slowly unpicked her impromptu, unexpected manifestation.

‘Crows?’

The fog was bright, a luminous cloud with no beginning or end. Without the sky, she didn’t know which way to go, but she could still listen for the movement of the waves on the shore. Perhaps that way. She took an uncertain step forward and called Crows’ name again.