Then I thought, Maybe I’m dead.

I don’t know why. But it occurred to me. Maybe this was how being dead felt. At first, anyway. This must have been how it was for Heather when she woke up in her coffin. She must have felt the same way I did: trapped, suffocated, frightened witless. God, no wonder she’d been in such a bad mood all the time. No wonder she’d wanted so desperately to get back to the world she’d known pre-death. This was horrible. It was worse than horrible. It was hell.

But then I moved my hand – the only part of me I could move – and felt something rough and cool resting over me. That’s when I knew what had happened. The breezeway had collapsed. Heather had used her last little bit of kinetic power to hurt me for sending her away. And she’d done a splendid job because here I was unable to move, trapped underneath who knew how many pounds of wood and Spanish tile.

Thanks, Heather. Thanks a lot.

I should have been scared. I mean, there I was pinned down, completely unable to move, in utter darkness. But before I had time to start panicking, I heard someone call my name. I thought at first I might be going crazy. Nobody knew, after all, that I’d gone down to the school except for Jesse, of course, and I’d told him what would happen if he showed up. He wasn’t stupid. He knew I was performing an exorcism. Could he have decided to come down anyway? Was it safe yet? I didn’t know. If he happened to step into the circle of candles and chicken blood, would he be sucked into that same dark shadowland that took Heather?

Now I started to panic.

‘Jesse!’ I yelled, pounding on the wood above my face, causing dirt and bits of wood to fall down on to my face. ‘Don’t!’ I shrieked. All the dust was making me choke, but I didn’t care. ‘Go back! It isn’t safe!’

Then a great weight was lifted off my chest, and suddenly I could see. Above me stretched the night sky, velvet blue and spotted with a dusting of stars. And framed by those stars hung a face hovering over me worriedly.

‘Here she is,’ Doc called, his voice wobbling in both pitch and volume. ‘Jake, I found her!’

A second face joined the first one, this one framed by a curtain of over-long blond hair. ‘Jesus Christ,’ Sleepy drawled, when he got a look at me. ‘Are you all right, Suze?’

I nodded, dazedly. ‘Help me up,’ I said.

The two of them managed to get most of the bigger pieces of timber off me. Then Sleepy instructed me to wrap my arms round his neck, which I did, while David grabbed my waist. And with the two of them pulling, and me pushing with my feet, I finally managed to get clear of the rubble.

We sat for a minute in the darkness of the courtyard, leaning against the edge of the dais on which the headless statue of Junipero Serra stood. We just sat there, panting and staring at the ruin which had once been our school. Well, that’s a bit dramatic, I guess. Most of the school was still standing. Even most of the breezeway was still up. Just the section in front of Heather’s locker and Mr Walden’s classroom had come down. The twisted pile of wood neatly hid the evidence of my evening’s activities, including the candles, which had evidently gone out. There was no sign of Heather. The night was perfectly quiet except for the sound of our breathing. And the crickets.