And then it happens. The light she is staring at explodes, the bulb and glass bursting, sending shards and splinters showering down onto the snow beneath it. Dozens of lethally sharp slivers slice into the ground around her, but not a single piece touches Tilda. Before anyone else has a chance to react, the second light blows in the same way, and then almost immediately the third. There is sudden silence as the generator splutters and fails. The area is plunged into darkness. Twilight fell while the excavation was in progress, and the sudden contrast with the earlier artificial light has left everyone temporarily blinded. Shouts go up, as people scramble for torches, amid cries of warning to watch for pieces of glass and hot metal in the snow. The diggers in the trench have no option but to set the stone back down on the ground. It is not in its original position exactly, but it is back in the grave, covering the main part of the skeleton once more.

As Tilda watches, the pulsating form ceases to grow. Instead it quickly shrinks and pales until it is just a faint, misshapen ghost again, slowly sinking down, down, down toward the grave. The hideous face turns to Tilda as it passes, spitting unintelligible words filled with venom. As the last of it is pulled back beneath the stone, a movement to her left catches Tilda’s eye. The gantry holding the second floodlight is teetering.

It’s going over!

‘Look out! Dylan!’ she shouts, as the hefty metal tower lurches and then begins to fall. Everyone on the ground scatters as they glimpse movement and hear Tilda’s warning. Everyone except Dylan. He appears transfixed, staring up at the light as it hurtles through the half-darkness toward him. If he does not leap from its path it will hit him. Unless Tilda can stop it. From where she stands she is too far to reach him, so there is no possibility of her pushing him out of the way. With no real idea of what it is she is doing, she grips the bracelet in her hand, wrenching it from her pocket, even as the gold seems to sear into her skin, and holds it aloft. She focuses on the light as it topples over, keeping her glaze fixed upon it. In the seconds it takes to fall, she forces herself to will it to change direction. She conjures an image of it veering to one side, so that it will fall harmlessly beside Dylan instead of hitting him. She pictures it doing this, pictures it thudding into the snow with him standing, unharmed, next to it.

But none of this happens.