Mucum looked up. There were tears in her eyes. “Hey. Don’t worry. I’ll come back!” Another lie. He didn’t know if he would.

There was a far-off rumbling sound. The whole cavern began to vibrate. “Step out, our Flo!” shouted Joe.

Mucum felt a cold breeze whistle through the gaps in the planking. “Are you sure this is safe?”

“Yas!” said Flo as she bent over. Just as she was about to kiss him, a blast of wind rattled the cage and threw them apart. The moment was gone. She looked sad. “Hold on tight.”

He tried to look away but couldn’t as Flo backed out of the cabin. “See yer!” he said, trying to sound casual, as strange feelings bubbled up inside him.

The vibrations grew louder and the whole cabin began to shake.

“When yow need us, we’ll be there!”

Mucum knew that Joe meant every word. As the doors slammed shut, he had one last glimpse of Flo’s face. Then darkness.

“All right, Diana. I’m not right sure if you exist,” whispered Mucum, “but if you do, can I ask you a favor? Not dying would be a bit of all right … please?” His last words were drowned out as the tide turned and the thirsty tree decided to take a drink. The water shot up from the depths of the earth like a liquid arrow, slammed into the fragile wooden cabin, and accelerated a terrified Mucum from nought to one hundred miles an hour in under a couple of seconds.

He was falling, upward. A shooting star. He held on for dear life. Every bump and jolt threatened to smash the lift to smithereens, and his teeth clacked around in his mouth like a whole set of wooden spoons. If this was the way the Rootshooters visited the forest, they were welcome to it. For a few seconds Mucum forgot how to breathe, until there was a wood-shattering BANG! Strapped up tight, said Flo. She was right, though the leather belt bit hard into his skin as he was almost catapulted up through the flimsy roof.

Somewhere, a tiny bell chimed. Outside the lift, a pair of doors slid smoothly open. From down under to up top within sixty seconds! Mucum undid the harness and tried to stand up, dizzy with vertigo and drenched from the water that had leaked through every tiny gap in the lift. The open doors revealed a curtain of creeping vine, punctured by stray shards of cloudy evening light. He stepped across the gap in the shaft, pushing through the leafy barrier onto good, solid woodway. He’d made it! A wide, lunatic grin crossed his face until he remembered what he’d left behind. He turned back to see the entrance of the lift almost swallowed in the greenery, on a quiet offshoot of the main branchway.