They dutifully stood and gazed at it because they had walked all that way to come and stare. So stare they did. Determinedly.

‘Obviously, we’ll tell Rosie that it was amazing,’ Thea said.

‘Best lighthouse ever.’

‘Epic.’

They had no other choice but to make their way back. Thea had hoped that somehow making it to the lighthouse would magically give her the decision she needed to make, so it was with a sigh that she followed Ethan back to the path, noticing that he was shortening his stride so she could keep up.

‘I could live on an island like this.’ Ethan cracked his knuckles again. ‘No people, with their constant bloody chatter: who did this? Why do that? What happened there? It drives me crazy, all the time, just talking for talking’s sake. The noise of it.’

It only took him a few seconds for realization to dawn. ‘Ah. Not you. Didn’t mean you. You’ve been fine.’

He sounded like he meant it. Thea felt absurdly proud.

‘It’s okay,’ she reassured him. ‘I’m not great sometimes at the whole talking-to-people thing.’

He held a massive fern leaf aside for her to pass, the green of it glossy like a jungle plant.

‘So … going to do it?’ he asked.

Skidding a little on the loose gravel of the path, Thea steadied herself as sleepless soldiers and red-eyed guinea pigs danced together through her mind. The fern leaf sprang back against her shoulder, a soft green hand on her neck.

She shrugged. ‘We’d better get back to Rosie.’

But, when they got to the monastery, Rosie was gone.

Chapter 17

Thea felt like the grey, hulking monastery at her back would unsheathe its claws at any moment and pounce on her, snapping her little rodent neck.

There was only silence.

‘Rosie!’ Ethan yelled, veins bulging in his throat.

‘How could she not be here?’ Thea went around the tree they’d left Rosie propped up against. ‘She can’t walk far – where would she go?’

‘I know she’s your friend and all, but the girl’s a bloody idiot.’

Ethan strode a little way into the bracken, swiping at it as if it was attacking him, while Thea, at a loss, took to staring at the ground, as if she could track her, as if she knew what to look for. Which she didn’t.

That’s when they heard it.

From the monastery.

A low sound, weak.

A moaning. Something in pain. A wretched sound.

The pit of Thea’s stomach went cold and her heart flopped sickly into her throat. The moaning continued and Ethan looked at her, eyes wide, both of them seemingly frozen by the sound.

‘What is that?’ he hissed.

‘I don’t know.’

He carefully backed away from the monastery. ‘Do you think it’s Rosie?’