Alexa had shaken off the pins and needles. She’d left Ellen in freefall long enough. Though as she stood up, Jack shuffled over. He curled his toes by way of a greeting.

‘How did it go, Jack?’

‘Didn’t see anyone,’ he replied. He seemed a little distracted.

‘That’s not good.’

‘No.’ Jack looked mournful, then brightened. ‘Ben waggled the sign a few times, though. And I think he’s going to shout again soon.’

‘Good.’ She sounded like her mother. ‘I’m going to go –’

Jack nodded solemnly, and she started to wend her way through the stacks. It was no easy feat; there was a hairy moment when Alexa almost lost a slipper inside a box that turned out to be unstable footing. After a minute or so, she found Ellen, buried in the middle of all this junk, wild-eyed. She could not see whatever Ellen had repurposed as a toilet.

‘It’s there,’ Ellen muttered, reading her mind, pointing to a perspex box about a metre further in, balanced between the wall and what looked like a folded-up table-tennis table.

‘What’s up?’ she asked, gently, manoeuvring herself into a crouching position until she was at Ellen’s level, only wincing slightly as her knees clicked. She kept her voice low.

‘OK, so I’m slightly freaking out,’ Ellen said, also in a low voice. Her eyes were darting from side to side.

‘Wait, why?’ Alexa noticed she was a little clammy.

‘I can’t stop thinking about last night,’ Ellen said, with a low moan. ‘I keep remembering all this … awful stuff.’

Alexa scrunched her face into a frown, mystified. ‘What happened last night?’

Ellen was taking shallow breaths. ‘OK, so I said this stupid, stupid thing to Felicia, because I was drunk.’ Her face fell at the memory.

Felicia was Ellen’s boss, whom she had nicknamed the ‘Grand High Witch’. Alexa was going to offer something weakly reassuring, but Ellen was off again.

‘Also, I think Lee is ignoring me and I don’t understand why. And I can’t remember whether I took my work laptop home and I’m suddenly really worried I left it on the night bus.’ Ellen was clenching and unclenching her fingers. ‘Also, it is really, really hot in here.’ She appeared to be at risk of hyperventilating.

‘El, shh. Deep breaths.’ Alexa moved to tuck Ellen’s hair behind her ears, but she flinched, and Alexa raised her hand in surrender. She needed to tread carefully. Ellen was beginning to spiral, and it was best to see the danger off at the pass, but one wrong move and this could go on for hours. ‘OK,’ she said, decisively, ‘this is a spiral. Listen to me. We are stuck in an attic. We have plenty of other things to worry about right now. You simply must not think about Felicia, or Lee, or your work laptop.’