Ellie went to the edge and shone her torch downwards, but the thin ray of light couldn’t reach the bottom; the chasm likewise extended as far as she could see in either direction. She tried to calculate its scale and couldn’t. It was impossible; there was no way all this could exist beneath Slapelow Hill and Thursdale. Perhaps they were under Fendmoor now, or Wakeman’s Edge, or beyond. Or perhaps they’d fallen into some other, parallel realm that could extend for countless miles, perhaps even into infinity.

It didn’t matter. They were here.

“We need to cross here,” said Madeleine.

“How, exactly?” demanded Charlotte.

Madeleine strode towards the edge. Ellie opened her mouth to call her back, but the vicar shone her torch directly ahead, and it gleamed on stone.

It looked like a bridge, although it was so caked in precipitated limestone – dripping with stalactites, studded with stalagmites – that for all Ellie knew it was a natural feature. In any case it led across the chasm. Madeleine stepped forward; she hesitated as she set foot on the bridge, then swayed and gripped the parapet for support.

“Mad?”

“I’m okay.” The vicar stood up straight with an effort and smiled at Ellie. She looked appalling: pale, sweaty and gaunt, as if she’d lost a substantial amount of weight since going underground, her sickness burning her up from within. “Just dying. But we already knew that, eh, Ell?”

The only sound was the drip of water. No one spoke. There was nothing to say. Madeleine sighed. “Anyway,” she said, and set off over the bridge.

Ellie followed, keeping to the centre; it wasn’t particularly wide, and the parapet was no more than hip-high, which felt like scant protection given the depth of the drop on either side.

Gusts of cold, rank-smelling wind blew up from the depths. Looking down felt positively insane, but nonetheless Ellie did. The abyss called out, sometimes.

The chasm’s edges were jagged and put her in mind of teeth, as though they were walking across an open, hungry mouth. What had Madeleine said? Down in the dark, in the old deep dark. Down in the Yawning, I see them stir. And indeed something did seem to be stirring down there, lighter than the blackness. Ellie couldn’t make it out clearly and was reluctant to shine the torch directly at it, but eventually she made to aim it down.

“Don’t, Ell.” Madeleine hadn’t turned round. “You don’t want to see. ‘Sides, they’re not far off waking as it is.”

Ellie shone her torch ahead again. She’d glimpsed something. She wasn’t sure what – a horn, a claw – but it had been frighteningly big. She did her best to convince herself it had only been a formation of oddly-coloured rock.

“Good call,” said Mad. “They’re a long way from the worst things down here.”