Chloe stopped at a wall of tumbledown rock woven with vine. She stared to the horizon, where spindly treetops split the sky, breaking around the flood like a fleet of shipwrecks.

Hours had passed since the gate. Now was good a time to ask as any.

‘Are we close?’ Ben called after her between breaths.

‘We’re here,’ she replied, looking back to him, her eyes popping white against rosy cheeks.

Since they set out, Ben had visualised a blurry, ill-defined object inside the creeper’s cottage, propped up neatly in its corner, gleaming for them to find. But this wasn’t some happy-ever-after fairy tale. Where there once shone a dim light at the end of the tunnel, Ben now saw only the creeper, smiling alone in his lightless den, awaiting their arrival; the latest perfect candidates marching eagerly to their doom.

‘Come on,’ Chloe said to him, noticing how flushed he’d become. ‘Just follow me.’

It had been a gruelling week, physically and emotionally, with too little sleep to keep either one afloat. When eventually the tears came, they would pulse out in torrents. Ben was surprised he hadn’t broken down already.

They entered the woodland as before, guarding their faces lest some thorny whip should find its mark. Everything was the same but different, like a memory altered. The earth oozed under their feet and the shadows had grown fat since their last visit, as though they had gorged their fill of all that filthy water. It was darker than Ben remembered, like a dimmer switch dialled back right before the click. One more turn and they would be blundering around blind. Droplets fell from the branches above, spattering his eyes as he searched for the bells amidst the abandoned nests.

‘Where are they?’ he whispered. ‘I can’t see them.’

Ben suddenly blundered into Chloe’s back.

There they were, dangling like hanged men from the highest branches; dead until summoned to sing. The tripwire was within an arm’s reach of her. Had he been plodding forward any faster he might have knocked her right into it.

‘Can you fit through there?’ she whispered, pointing to the meagre space between the tripwire and the ground.

It was going to be tight, that was for sure. Before he had a chance to answer, Chloe had ducked under, wrenching down her parka’s collar with both hands, shrinking into the smallest possible version of herself.

The bells watched on.

Ben had to drop down to his knees, letting both hands sink into soil thick like unset cement.

‘I hate this place,’ he whispered as his wrists plunged out of sight.

‘I know,’ she said, still kneeling, watching him crawl towards her. ‘I’d be seriously worried about you if you didn’t.’