Edie sat up and picked a blade of grass. Then she held it up in front of her face and studied it, rotating it slowly, tipping her head to look at it from every angle.

‘Sometimes I think about her funeral and wonder if I’d even cry or not.’

I had a flash of Eleanor’s face, drained of blood, her lifeless eyes staring through me. She was mouthing something at me. But I couldn’t make out what she was saying. I told her to tell me again. Strained to hear. But nothing. No sound. Just her pallid face staring.

Tamsyn?

It was Edie’s voice. In the distance.

‘Tamsyn?’

She came into focus, emerging through the mist, her brow knotted, her face only a few inches from mine. ‘Christ, are you okay? What the hell happened? You’re burning up.’ She pulled me in towards her. Held me tightly, one hand on the back of my head, her fingers scrunched into my hair. I was warm and safe, as if I was back at The Cliff House, lying beside the pool, the waves breaking on the rocks in time with her heartbeat which I felt through her T-shirt. Something inside me stirred. A radiating heat.

‘It’s okay,’ she whispered.

All my love, Edie.

I looked up at her and she smiled. And then I moved closer and pressed my lips to hers. My stomach surged at the feel of her mouth on mine. The world slipped away as if we were floating. I imagined us in the pool at The Cliff House. Nobody there but us. The water so still, not a ripple, the two of us reflected in its black mirrored surface.

But then Edie took an intake of breath.

She pushed me away.

‘No,’ she breathed.

I watched with horror as her expression changed from shock to disbelief. Her hand flew to her mouth. Her head shook back and forth. All her warmth evaporated as she recoiled and the moment shattered like a fallen glass.

‘What are you doing?’ Her voice was strangled.

Fear flooded me.

She stood and wrapped her arms around her middle as if she were cold.

I scrambled to my feet. A pain skewed my shoulder and shot around my body.

‘You said. You said all my love,’ I whispered.

‘What?’

‘All my love, Edie.’

I stepped towards her, but she retreated. My world was darkening, the edges shrinking in on me. I saw The Cliff House racing away at a dizzying speed. I reached out to grab it, but my hand closed around nothing.

‘I’m not like that. I like men. Boys. I’m not… that way.’

Edie’s hands seemed to tighten around herself.

And then a raven cawed nearby.

I snapped my head around. Where was it hiding? It was somewhere there. Concealed amid the ruins. Watching from a glassless window. Or the top of a crumbling wall.