With desperate inspiration, Alex reached quickly into his pocket and threw the old toy robot to the floor of the car, saw it bounce out of sight under his seat. Then he watched his kicking feet rise above the mangled roof. It took a stunned moment to realize he had been lifted into the air. Flying. He was aware of a whining noise all around, saw dozens more fliers laboring to support the life-sizer that carried him.

Below, the car skidded, careening off the road. It smashed through bushes and went crashing into the ditch around a dim, rutted field.

“Grandad!”

He was lifted higher. Cool rain bathed him. A rushing noise came close. He looked around to see the moon face looming in.

“We’re waaaalking in the aiiiiiir,” Zia trilled. “Come on, join in.”

Alex found his notebook in his pocket and flung it at her end over end like a ninja star, then kicked out wildly as she dodged easily away.

“What? Don’t feel like singing? Okay.” She moved in, shoved a small fist under his nose. When she uncurled the fingers, more gray powder lay in her palm.

“Night-night, then,” she said, blowing it in his face. Alex jerked back, but the stuff was already in his eyes, up his nose. A heavy, spicy smell.

Blinking to clear his vision, Alex saw, far below, the beams of the car’s headlights stretching forlornly across the field, lighting up a group of horses that stood startled in the darkness, watching the strange flying formation. He started to feel warm and full, cold and empty, moving slower as the world rocketed faster away from him.

Eyes closing. Opening. Closing. Opening.

The horses were galloping below, running after him, looking up, as though they were trying to catch him, tell him something he’d forgotten.

Closed. Open.

The world rushed away. He thought about his mum waving him off to school, his grandfather falling from a roof, Kenzie Mitchell falling into the light, witches dancing on collapsing mountains with their thumbs all bleeding, cars crashing everywhere, bye-bye.

He saw horses . . . horses . . .

And then his eyes closed and would not open again.

XIX.

DOWN IN THE HOLE

The moon was enormous, blindingly bright in the black sky. A halo of light echoed around it.

Alex lay on his back, staring up, until the glare made him turn away. Shielding his eyes, he looked again. There never was a moon so big. As he blinked, a shadow moved across its lower edge.

“Morning, bunny,” the shadow called.

Alex flinched and his head struck something hard and cold. There was a smell of time and dampness. It took several seconds to work out what was going on. The glowing white disc above wasn’t the moon in the night sky at all. It was the morning sky: gray-white clouds, framed within the circular opening of a deep, dark well.

And he was lying at the bottom of it.