‘He won’t. It was because you were here, you got him all—’

‘Selena,’ I said. ‘You know he was there. You want to tell us whether you think he’ll be back?’

In the slow fall of silence, I heard something. Murmur of voices, away down at the bottom of the slope. A man. A girl.

Closer, in the cypresses behind me: a sound like the muted first breath of a roar. Conway, moving among the braches to cover the voices. ‘Selena,’ I said. ‘Is Chris going to be back?’

Selena said, ‘He’s there the whole time. Even when I don’t see him, I can feel him. I hear him, like this humming noise right inside the backs of my ears, like when the telly’s on mute. All the time.’

I believed her. Believed every word. I said, heard the hoarse note in my voice, ‘What does he want?’

‘At first I was sure he was looking for me. Oh God I tried so hard but I could never make him see me, he never heard me, I was begging him Chris I’m here I’m right here but he just looked right past me and kept doing whatever he was doing, I tried to hold him but he just dissolved before I could—’

A high keening sound from Rebecca.

‘I thought it was because we weren’t allowed, like punishment, always looking for each other but we’d never be allowed to— But it’s because it isn’t me he wants. All that time—’

Julia said, ‘Shut up.’

‘All that time, he was never looking for—’

‘Jesus Christ, can you shut up?’

Something like a sob, from Selena. Then nothing. The low roar among the cypresses wavered through the air and was gone, rock in a cold pool. The voices at the bottom of the slope sank with it.

Rebecca said, in the empty space, ‘Lenie. What’s he want?’

Julia said, ‘Can we please fucking please talk about it later?’

‘Why? I’m not scared of him.’ Me.

‘Then duh, start paying attention. He’s the only thing we need to be scared of. There isn’t anything else. This ghost bullshit—’

‘Lenie. What do you think he wants? Chris?’

‘OhmyGod, he doesn’t fucking exist, what do I have to do—’

Kids fighting, they sounded like. That was all. Not like Joanne’s lot, cheap sneer-and-peck by numbers, every word and thought worn threadbare before it ever reached them, not that; but not the enchanted girls, soaring among tumbling arpeggios of gold, that I had come hoping for just that morning. What I had seen before, that triple power, that had been the last flicker of something lost a long time ago. Light from a dead star.

‘Lenie. Lenie. Is it me he’s after?’

Selena said, ‘I wanted it to be me so much.’