Daylight was gradually diluting the dark in the east. The surrounding lands were dissimilar to Ben’s memories – those colourless flashes of torchlight. All had been black, or white as bone. The trees, once so monstrous, were now fragile and weather-beaten. Tins were scattered around their campfire, its stone rink a flooded pool of ash and twigs. Their field was smaller than he remembered. The night had confused him. And now, so too had the day.

With Chloe sealed inside the tent, Ben scanned the outlying fields. Their grasses were grey as stone, almost merging with the misty sky. All that mattered was that they were empty. He stood for a moment, reluctant to leave her alone, but she was perfectly safe. He wouldn’t be gone long.

‘Okay,’ he whispered, stuffing both hands into his pockets and stealing one last glance back at their tent, ‘time for church.’

Chloe had already identified the building’s features and peculiarities, dissecting it with an educated eye. Ben’s gut just told him that there was something else. There had to be. Or maybe he was still half asleep and this hope was but a dream he hadn’t snapped out of yet.

The lane was an uneven gully of puddles. Runnels of rainwater trickled through its ditches, by every dip and rise. The mud was thick, as if some deranged villager had taken a whisk to it overnight. Sunrise would hopefully cheer the world up when it came, though judging by the sky their trek back to the car was going to be a wet one. The church’s triangular tip eventually rose above the treetops as Ben neared the crest of a hill.

‘There you are,’ he said. ‘Thought you could hide from Benny Boy, did you?’

A small gate sagged from its hinges like a dislocated limb. An archway of vine had grown over it, offering some shelter from the rain that clung to Ben’s face like a light sweat. No tool had tamed back the grounds for years. It was abound with briars and weeds, leaving only the narrowest pathway to reach the church. As Ben approached its doorway, he could hear the wind whistling within.

A flagstone floor led to the altar, where a fine rain misted the air, wheeling through skinny window frames and blowing leaves into every crook and corner. More weeds lined its cracks, clawing up to the light, only to die in a church that felt more like a tomb. A section of the northern wall had collapsed outward, leaving an opening that Chloe could probably fit through at a squeeze.