Neither of us moves until the cassette ejects with a clunk, having played its silent end, giving way to static. Abby hits the off button, fumbles to get out of the car and walks through the settling dust. I don’t follow her straight away. I’m clocking what just happened. What the hell just happened? I turn off the engine, feel the thumping drum of my heart, the heat where my jeans sink into ridged vinyl, a breeze through the open door. I watch my sister walk away, her long hair splayed across the back of her singlet like a web.

Once I get out, I cross the road and stand on the thin verge, shaking my sore wrists. Down in the ditch, Abby stands next to the crumpled car. A blue Holden Premier, stopped on the cusp of a roll, one front wheel and one back not touching earth, the bonnet crunched against the trunk of a white gum, headlights still blazing. Abby’s on her toes, yanking at the driver’s-side doorhandle. I slide down to join her. ‘Help me,’ she says. Instead, I go to the front of the car, worried she’ll pull it down onto all fours, onto us. But it’s pushed so firmly into the tree, pug-faced, there’s no chance of that.

I can see the driver, a woman, slumped across the steering wheel, glowing under the internal light. She has thick blonde locks shot through with caramel and gold. Blood oozes from her head. She’s coated in shards of glass.

‘Charlie, help me. We have to get her out.’

‘You’re not supposed to move –’

‘It’ll blow up! I’ve seen it on TV.’

We stand side by side and pull on the handle, yelling at the woman to come to, poking her limp arm through the open window, until the door gives. I’m jammed into the join of door and car when she falls out onto Abby. They hit the ground together, a mess of bloodied skin and hair and glass. Abby screams. ‘Get her off me. Get her off.’

I shove the car door away from my chest, then squat beside them and lift the woman so my sister can get out from underneath her. We lay the woman on the ground’s coat of leaves, sticks and bark. She’s honey-skinned, with a spray of freckles across her nose and cheeks, and her hair is incandescent even away from the light. She’s beautiful, and heavily pregnant.

I look across at Abby. We’re both open-mouthed, mirror images of shock.

‘Charlie,’ she whispers.

I nod.

‘Wake up,’ Abby says, kneeling closer to the woman. She shakes her by the shoulders.

‘She’s not sleeping.’ I speak more loudly. ‘Hey, lady, hey! Can you hear me?’ I stare at her. I’m not sure but – ‘Is this Stevie Nicks?’

‘No, you idiot.’ Abby places two fingers on the woman’s wrist.

‘It might be,’ I say. ‘You don’t know.’

‘No pulse.’ I hear panic in her voice.

I put my hand on the warm skin of the woman’s neck, pushing aside hair, but I’m shaking and can’t be certain if I feel the throb of blood. I scan for movement under her closed eyelids, block song lyrics from filling my head.