Thea could watch Ethan die, she could walk over Delores’s dead body, she could look away as Moses hit the ground … but she could not run out of this building without knowing she’d at least tried to help Rosie. If she did that, she would know that the island had changed her forever – and she wouldn’t be able to live with the person she’d become.

The glass of the front doors was cold. It felt good on her forehead as she rested her head against it. She gave herself a moment. Carefully and deliberately she pressed her palms against the glass as well. The imprint of her hands joined all the others, a smudgy marker, a sign that she too had been here. She had been alive in this place. Once.

She took a deep breath and faced the nearest corridor.

Chapter 50

‘Why are you ’ere?’ The man eyed Vivian suspiciously.

‘I would have thought that was fairly obvious. The sign said rooms available. I want a room.’

The pub’s name, “Sanity’s End”, was probably going to be more accurate than Vivian had at first thought.

The train journey had done terrible things to her bones, but worse things to her soul. So much emptiness had stretched out around her, fields and fields with just a horizon line where they met sky, no friendly rooftop or chimney buttressing the void. The light had begun to dim as the mountains set in. Vivian thought they might provide some relief from the unwavering flat lands but they proved to be worse, great hulking things bending down to work out whether the little train chugging through them was worth crushing.

The station had been deserted but there had been a dog-eared noticeboard, the plastic covering warped and brown in places as if someone had tried to set it alight. She’d phoned the only taxi firm available.

Despite the fading light, she could see the island through the pub’s streaked windows.

‘Why are you ’ere? No rooms available.’

The man had appeared like a terrible magic act from behind a stained velvet curtain, which was still half open and gave a peek into a cluttered living space beyond. A muted television flickered light over a defeated chair, a scuffed side table and carpet that rightfully belonged to the Sixties.

‘Clearly not for a pleasant holiday,’ she muttered to herself and then decided to lose any attempt at subtlety. ‘What’s going on over on that island?’

She was sure he paled a little; it was hard to tell because his face looked as if it had been left out too long in bad weather.

‘What island?’ He narrowed his eyes.

Vivian fought down the urge to laugh, but instead pointed through the window. ‘That island, right there. The one we can both clearly see.’