She goes back to staying still. She carefully cordons off enough of her mind to do the necessary stuff, like showers and homework, so people won’t come bothering her. She puts the rest into concentrating.

After a while she understands that something destroyed Chris to save her.

After a while longer she understands that this means it wants her for its own, and that she belongs to it for good now.

She cuts her hair off, for an offering, to send the message that she understands. She does it in the bathroom and burns the soft pale heap in the sink – the glade would be better, but they haven’t been back there since it happened, and she can’t tell if that’s because the others know some reason she hasn’t figured out. Her hair takes the lighter flame with a fierceness she didn’t expect, a whump and a wide-mouthed roar like faraway trees taking forest fire. She whips her hand away, but not fast enough, and her wrist is left with a small drumming wound.

The smell of burning stays. For weeks afterwards she catches it on her, savage and holy.

Chunks of her mind fall off sometimes. At first it frightens her, but then she realises once they’re gone she doesn’t miss them, so it doesn’t bother her any more. The burn scars red and then white.

When Chris has been dead for four days, Julia hears that Finn’s been expelled for hotwiring the fire door, and starts waiting for the cops to come for her.

They gave her and the others some hassle about Selena going out with Chris, but it was the cunning mirage hassle Holly talked about, looked impressive till you got up close and saw there was nothing solid there. It dissolved after a few days of blank head-shakes. Which means that Gemma couldn’t keep Joanne from flapping her yap altogether – in fairness, nothing short of surgery could – but she must have managed to get it through Joanne’s thick skull that, no matter how incredibly awesomesauce the drama would be, they need to keep the details quiet for their own sakes.

But Julia couldn’t exactly get that through to Finn. (Hi, Jules here! Remember how u thot i was usin u 2 shag ur mate? U no wat wd b totes amazeballs? If u cud not mention dat 2 d cops. Kthxbai!!) All she could do was keep her fingers crossed he would somehow work out all the stuff Holly warned about, and this is the kind of situation that requires more than crossed fingers. A bunch of Colm’s idiots versus those two detectives: of course someone slipped up, in the end.