‘Loads have gone,’ she was moaning.

I felt a hot flash of anger. If she was actually annoyed the kids had wolfed her cakes, she was lucky that was all she had to worry about.

‘Everything all right?’ The doctor dude Ish looked at Zach over my shoulder. ‘You OK, mate?’

‘Fine, really.’ I pulled Zach forward, relieved there was a medic in the house, so to speak. ‘It might have been some dodgy chicken. Cecilia’s been quite sick.’

‘Oh God.’ Nella paled. ‘I do hope not. Are you feeling OK, Willow?’

‘Chill, Mum.’ She was calm. ‘I’m just worried about the others.’

‘It’d be very quick for the food to have affected them both.’ Ish frowned. ‘Have you been vomiting, mate?’

‘No, and I don’t feel sick. And I didn’t eat chicken anyway, I told you, Mum,’ Zach mumbled. ‘Only burgers.’ He pulled on my hand like a much smaller child. ‘Can we go?’

I nodded. ‘Sure.’

‘I think it’s probably time we all called it a night.’ Marcus put his guitar down and started to kick the fire out.

‘Good idea.’ Nella darted a look at Rebekah. ‘Shall we all turn in?’

‘But…’ Rebekah Hobbit-hands stood open-mouthed, holding the brownie box. ‘I just—’

A cry came from the bushes nearby.

‘Jesus, kid,’ Lena’s voice cut across it. ‘You might wanna put that down, yeah?’ She was staring across the fire.

As one, we looked round.

Grinning horribly, his arms outstretched before him, Beau stood on the other side of the fire and, this time, it wasn’t an archery bow he was aiming wildly at us all, but some kind of gun.

Melissa

Once I’d got Cecilia to the tent and she’d stopped retching and was a little calmer, I crawled out to find some dry clothes from the bag outside.

‘All right?’

I gasped out loud. ‘Oh God, you scared me!’

‘Sorry.’ Stealthy as a fox – the same man who’d met me in the trees this afternoon: the man called Fin.

‘Are you stalking me?’ My eyes narrowed, my heart still banging.

‘Course not! Just overshot my tent.’ He gestured into the darkness. ‘Filling my bottle at the tap.’

‘Sure about that?’

‘Sure I’m sure!’ He backed off, hands aloft in apparent apology.

‘Why didn’t you join us earlier?’

‘I meant to, but I lay down for five minutes and nodded off. Got the London–Brighton cycle race first thing tomorrow.’ He rubbed a rueful shoulder. ‘Been training a bit too hard. Really didn’t mean to frighten you.’

I wondered about that accent again, my Irish geography being non-existent. The north, somewhere? Belfast, perhaps?

‘It’s fine,’ I conceded, rifling through the bag. ‘It’s nice to see a friendly face actually.’ Glancing up, I managed a smile. ‘Even if it is in the middle of the night in a wood.’

‘Are you OK?’ He peered down. ‘You seem a bit – stressed.’

‘My daughter’s not feeling well.’ Finding some leggings, I shoved everything back in with some force. ‘Dodgy chicken maybe – or—’