The two words hang in the air between them. It’s not the first time she’s apologised to her sister – their first phone call that final day of the retreat, on Damian’s phone, was eighty percent tears and strangled sobs and twenty percent ‘I’m sorry’ – but it’s the first time she’s said it in person.

She searches her sister’s face. It’s been nearly three years since she last saw her and the lines around Fran’s eyes and between her eyebrows have deepened; the stress and lack of sleep forever etched on her face.

‘No.’ Fran shakes her head lightly. ‘I’m the one who should apologise. If I’d … if I’d been a better sister then you wouldn’t have felt so alone. You should have been able to turn to me. No … no that’s not it. I should have picked up that something was wrong. I should have known.’

Jenna bows her head. She can’t bear it, seeing the ache in her sister’s eyes, the regret.

‘It wasn’t your fault, Fran. I let you believe I was dead.’

‘You were in a dark place.’

This time Jenna doesn’t contradict her.

‘Damian saved my life,’ she says instead.

She didn’t lose consciousness after Erica smashed a rock into the back of her head, but she was dazed from the blow and weak from four hours in the unrelenting heat of the sweat lodge. She lay on the ground, a jagged piece of rock beneath her cheekbone, and blinked in the darkness as the last sliver of light dropped off the horizon and turned the world slate grey. The gulls stopped cawing and circling and the only sounds she could hear were from the camp behind her, shouts, orders and cries of distress. She tried to lift her head, to shift up onto her elbow but everything hurt and she was too weak to move. She gave up trying and closed her eyes but the darkness brought memories – Kate’s voice, warm and damp in her ear, the bird, red and rotten, the nail varnish spilled over her clothes, Tom moving above her, pushing into her, his eyes fixed on hers, Kate and Tom kissing, Erica sneering ‘I tried to warn you’, her voice melding with Damian’s: ‘He’s got you under his spell.’

‘Jenna? Jenna?’ Damian’s voice grew louder, more insistent. She screwed her eyes tighter as she tried to block it out.

She could feel a hand on her shoulder, shaking her, making everything ache. She groaned as his fingers probed the base of her skull.

‘What the hell happened?’

‘Erica. She attacked me.’

She heard him swear as he dug his fingers beneath her armpits and under her knees, felt her flip-flops fall as he lifted her into the air. ‘We need to get you to a medic.’

‘Where’s Tom?’