With Aunt Patricia gone, so too was anything remotely bordering on make-believe. Entertaining such things had invited only trouble thus far in Ben’s childhood and, going forward, his upbringing was to lead a more rational path. Movies weren’t real. His father would show him behind-the-scenes footage; actors not acting and monsters out of costume, not monstering. Vampires, werewolves, fairies – all of them fictitious. Santa Claus died around that time, too. Ben’s parents sold this mindset to him as something lofty, as if he were too clever to believe – never mind enjoy – anything that wasn’t real. And whatever it was that Aunt Patricia had seen that night was never spoken of. Eventually his parents probably hoped that he had forgotten it even happened. People always assume children to be forgetful. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Whenever Ben remembered his Aunt Patricia, he would instinctively touch his neck like a prisoner who’d felt the noose. It wasn’t the act of being choked that stuck with him. It was her face, so honest and terror-stricken. He would often wonder what it was that she had seen. What horrors had her mind projected onto the space behind him?

The rain eased off eventually, but it wasn’t the water above their heads that slowed Ben and Chloe’s pace to a crawl. Parcels of dry land were rare. Tír Mallacht was ringed with swampland, making every step a roll of the dice. And Ben’s luck was borderline cursed.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being followed. His suspicions, like himself, lacked solid ground to stand on. But the wasp had been so keen to see the back of them. He might have sent someone to make sure they did as they were told. Shadows shifted like stealthy bodies in the periphery of his vision. But it was just his eyes playing tricks on him. Ben knew that. He was tired and easy prey for those fears and doubts that roamed the land so freely.

What was it that Mary had said? Everyone is safe so long as we stay here, and that’s what matters. They could stay where they were. The world was better off without them.

Ben imagined sitting into the rental’s faux leather, the dull tap of rain on its roof, the click of the door and the milestone it signified. He wanted it more than anything – that modern sense of security. The comfort of the now, instead of the painful primitiveness they’d just escaped. From there, the journey would be a breeze. Nothing like the gale that had chased them since daybreak. All they had to do was reach the car, that flagpole on the mountaintop bending in the wind.