Madison had convinced the girls to disappear. Madison had convinced Denni to kill herself. Madison had to pay.

‘This place is so creepy,’ said Gabriella.

‘The most haunted forest in Australia, according to MMMMadison,’ said Eliza. ‘Don’t forget to like, comment and subscribe.’

Gabriella stepped a bit closer to her, looking up ahead over the trail that curved through shoulder-high ferns. Eliza led the way, feet crashing through the growth.

A noise growled in the path beside them: a shrieking howl, an unholy beast.

Gabriella screamed, clutching Eliza’s arm.

‘Just a Tassie devil,’ said Eliza. ‘We’re nearly there.’

‘That was a devil?’ hissed Gabriella. ‘It sounded like . . .’

‘How do you think they got their name?’

It didn’t take long until they had joined the main trail, which was wider and straighter, red soil and rocks showing the path in the twilight. More Tasmanian devils growled in the night around them, mixing with the sound of insects and the cussik-cussik call of a green rosella. Candlebark and swamp peppermint reached over their heads, deeper darkness, a perfect corridor.

Emotion – so many deep and heavy emotions, one after the other for days – had sapped all her energy. But they were close now. She switched on her torch against the building dark. There, just ahead, was the craggy clearing, dotted with fern-like clubmoss, in which that ancient King Billy Pine known as the Hanging Tree stood alone.

‘What’s that?’ said Gabriella suddenly, her voice strained. When Eliza stopped to listen, she could hear voices from behind them.

Through the trees, back down the trail towards the school, in the gloom, were little lights, bobbing through the trees. Eliza’s blood chilled, until she heard the music coming from a portable speaker. They weren’t ghosts: they were people. A lot of them.

‘Another search party?’ said Eliza.

‘What’s with the candles?’ said Gabriella. ‘Should we wait for them to catch up?’

‘Those are cameras.’ Fury filled Eliza – how dare people intrude on this moment of mourning and grief. She strode ahead, towards the tree, and Gabriella scrambled to keep up.

The next moment they were beneath the branches of the Hanging Tree. Eliza’s shoulders were tense: a great weight of sadness. Her torch beam lit the cut flowers and memorials around the trunk, some of them left by her.

‘Oh no,’ choked Gabriella.

Eliza’s torchlight followed the trunk, until it landed on something hanging from one of the branches.

Eliza screamed.

‘Shit, shit, shit,’ said Gabriella.

The mass of people with the candles and music and cameras stampeded towards them, drawn by Eliza’s scream, until the space around the tree was full of more screaming, and candlelight, and music, and cameras – TV crews and newspaper photographers and YouTubers and Instagram influencers.

‘Who is it?’

‘She’s dead! She’s hung herself!’

‘It’s Bree. Oh God, it’s Bree Wilkins.’

‘Someone call the cops!’

‘They’re here! Where are they? Police! Call an ambulance!’