He tried to visualise exactly how he had left it. His worries seized the brush, painting a car submerged up to its windscreen in Tír Mallacht’s signature brand of ooze. Between the excitement and hauling their equipment out of the boot, Ben hadn’t paid due attention to his parking. He wouldn’t have put all four tyres on the ditch, would he? Surely some silent alarm would have stopped him. If they were stuck, he’d call for help. That is to assume that one of their phones still held any charge. How would he even begin to describe where they were?

‘Please,’ Ben muttered to himself, ‘don’t tell me I fucked this up.’

Chloe reached the gate first. She had kept her lead the entire way, stalling her stride here and there so as not to lose him, like a lover teasing his advances. Her arms lifted in tired celebration before she clambered onto the other side, winning another gold medal for the mantelpiece. Ben wasn’t rejoicing just yet.

‘Let’s never do that again,’ she said to him, breathless, watching him throw a leg over the gate, its steel cold and slick in his hands.

He cast a discreet eye in the direction of the ditch and let out a sigh of relief that Chloe probably mistook for one of exhaustion. The wheels hadn’t sunk.

‘Hey, stop,’ Chloe shouted, ‘look at this!’

She was looking down at the earth beyond the gate, shirking back as though the cold wind had touched her for the first time. There they were, embedded fresh with no effort made to lighten their dent – footprints. There was no reason to travel this way unless hikers or those living close by had a mind to ramble. But Ben knew from their journey that there were no houses for miles. They were far removed from the world, its people and their comforts. The steps grouped around the car but stretched no further. Whoever was responsible hadn’t followed the same narrow lane that Ben had driven the day prior. They must have come from the field, and from the direction of Tír Mallacht.

‘Holy shit,’ Chloe said, ‘look at the car.’

Ben pried his eyes from the ground and saw the scratches across its side. From the front door, reaching far as the back wheel, were symbols, like those in Chloe’s sketchbook. They lacked the contours and curves that flow naturally from the wrist. These were carved into the paint job with great force, defacing the car whose rental company still held their deposit.

‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ Ben gasped, hands on his head. ‘Those motherfuckers!’