“That’s it,” Cera says. “Now remember, if anyone asks where you’ve been, you’re to tell them you’ve been detoxing and that it was the most amazing experience of your life.”

The tree outside is buffeted to the right. It bends so sharply I think it might snap, but then the wind drops and it rights itself.

“Who gave you the knife?” Isis asks as I step outside the shed and breathe in a lungful of fresh air.

I shake my head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“The knife you attacked Isaac with. Sally said it’s one of the kitchen knives and only people who work in the kitchen could have had access to it. Leanne and Al were working with Sally and Raj. Which one of them gave it to you, Emma?”

Isaac’s clearly on a witch hunt and wants to pin the knife incident on Al, Sally or Raj. Why? To use it as an excuse to get rid of them?

Or maybe he already knows who gave me the knife. Leanne’s his half-sister, but she’s also Al’s best friend. Where does her loyalty lie now? She’s already sold Al out by telling Isaac about her brother Tommy and then lying about it when Daisy and I were trying to get to the bottom of Isis’s “psychic” reading. What was it she said – she’d never tell anyone about Tommy, because it was too personal? She saw how distraught Al was, and yet she said nothing. I know exactly where her loyalties lie.

“Emma?” Isis says again. “Who gave you the knife?”

I look her straight in the eye. “No one. I stole it.”

Cera and Isis don’t leave my side for the rest of the day. Everywhere I go, they go too – to the girls’ dorm, to dinner, to the meditation room, to the toilet. The first time we see another member of the community – Sally, down by the waterfall, washing her clothes – they both stiffen. Sally looks up as we approach, a pink T-shirt in one hand, a grey rock in the other. Fear flickers in her eyes.

“Hello, ladies.” Her smile barely registers on her lips. “How are you?”

Cera throws an arm around me and pulls me towards her. Her nails dig into the top of my arm. “Emma’s just come out of her detox.”

Sally’s gaze flicks from Cera’s hand to my face. “Congratulations! I’d hug you but I’m up to my arms in muddy clothes. The vegetable patch won’t weed itself.” She laughs but there’s a hollow ring to it.

“Are you coming to the party tonight?” Isis asks.

“Party?”

“Yeah. Isaac’s organised a Pokhara run for tomorrow. It hasn’t rained for a couple of days and the ground’s a bit firmer than it was.”

“Do you know who’s going?”