I squeeze my eyes shut and wriggle down in my sleeping bag. I must be dreaming or half asleep, I tell myself as I lie there, listening and hardly daring to breathe. The wind brushes through the trees and the fire crackles.

“Arthur, take me to Home!” The gravelly whisper is louder this time and close to my ear. I’m so terrified that I can’t bring myself to even peek out of the sleeping bag. Instead I bury myself farther down until my head is covered, and I think happy thoughts. I think of Win and his promise to take us to see the Lost Girls, and I think of swimming in the warm water of Mitch’s lagoon. I imagine every single thing we are going to do in Roar, one by one, and I don’t let my mind drift for a second to voices or the shape by the fire.

And amazingly this works.

Because the next thing I know, the sun is shining down and I can hear birds singing in the trees. I sit up and stretch my stiff body. Straight away my eyes go to Rose and Win, and the space between them. There’s nothing there. Not even a rock. I did imagine it! Relief runs through me as warm as the sunshine.

Just then Rose rolls over, yawns, and opens her eyes.

“Rose, I had the weirdest dream last night,” I say.

“Other people’s dreams are boring,” she mutters.

I shake my head. “Not this one.”

But she’s not listening. Instead she sits up and stares over my shoulder. “What is that?” she says.

“What?” I turn to look. At first I don’t know what she’s talking about. Then I see it. Painted on the wall outside Win’s cave, in big dripping letters:

WHAT’S IN THE BOX?

The words have an instant effect on me. My mouth goes dry and my skin prickles with fear. “The Box . . . ,” I whisper.

“I’d almost forgotten about the Box,” says Rose.

“Me too.”

Like so many things in Roar, the Box had slipped to the back of my mind. But just seeing the message brings back a jumble of unpleasant memories. I untangle myself from my sleeping bag and shake Win. “Wake up. Something’s happened!”

“What? Where?” He leaps to his feet. Then he sees the message.

The three of us approach the words as if they might leap off the wall and bite us. Up close we can see the black paint is dripping over the lumpy rock and the letters are jagged and messy.

“The Box is gone,” I say. “Right?”

Rose nods. “Mitch got rid of it years ago.”

“That writing was not there last night,” says Win, reaching up and running a finger through a drip of wet paint. “Who wrote it?”

“Who do you think?” I say. “Crowky.”