But still, a bare room and an absent Daisy weren’t any reason to panic . . . only wherever she’d gone, she’d taken Baby Gordon with her. Smothering a bubble of worry with reassurances that Daisy had often taken the chick with her to lectures, Susan went to inspect the desk.

Sitting in the middle of the desk was a patchily highlighted handout: Pottery in the Neolithic Era—An Overview.

“Thrilling . . .” Susan muttered, noting that Daisy had written the date of the lecture at the top. Two days ago. Unlike Esther, Daisy was diligent in her class attendance. According to the timetable pinned to her board, she’d had two more lectures since. There were no handouts, but there was a selection of primary-colored exercise books—the sort Susan had used in junior school—lined up in a neat little row along the back of the desk. Each one had a topic written on the front, which Susan checked against the timetable.

Renaissance, Reformation, European Colonialism . . .

Lecture match!

Flipping that particular book open, Susan nodded in appreciation at the opening page of methodical color-coding and bullet points, carried on throughout . . .

Until more recently.

Here the notes were fragmented, doodles of what looked like a flower emerging in the margins, a motif repeated over and over with increasing intricacy. As the occurrences of the flower motif increased, the quality of Daisy’s note-taking deteriorated to the point where the notes barely made sense.

The path to enlightenment is paved by sharing . . . Zoise opens the door to those of us who have opened ourselves to Zoise . . . Share the sanctuary only with those who wish to embrace it . . . Zoise desires more . . .

And then, on the next page, a single question: What sacrifice are you willing to make for your family?

Beneath, in capitals, the answer: THE WORLD WILL TURN WITHOUT ME.

Susan slammed the book shut in horror. Daisy hadn’t joined a yoga group. She’d joined a cult.

“I don’t think Vectra likes me,” Esther said, bum resting on the bottom step leading down to the beer garden, feet planted wide enough that there was a nice big patch of paving for her to stare at while she avoided Ed Gemmell’s gaze.

“I don’t think she likes anyone.”

“Really?” Esther was surprised.

“I think that’s why she makes herself kind of hard to like.”

“Oh, you mean the whole . . .” Esther indicated her own attire with a wave of her hand.

“No, actually . . .” It was Ed Gemmell’s turn to stare at the pavement, brushing his fingers through his hair, then evening out the toggles on his hoodie as he said, “All that’s really quite appealing.” His voice broke a little on “appealing,” and he took a sip of water. “It’s more about her personality.”

“But she’s just like me! Sisters of the dark, kindred black souls, rebels in the night, united against a world that hates us.”