As I’ve moved through life I’ve become aware of an invisible tether, a cord which fastens one to everyone else, of everyone who has lived and will live and lives. Even when alone I can sense it, the unobserved ticking of the world; a car whooshing past outside, the memory of a conversation I had that day, the news playing faintly from downstairs. Out here, as nothing more than a pest clinging to the body of the No-Names, I’m certain that has been severed. I have never felt so utterly alone, so inconsequential, so like something biological and forgotten.

I think, fleetingly, about my woods theory and hate myself for daring to entertain such a strictly evil hypothesis.

The rain picks up. It is somehow darker than it was before.

And then there’s a voice in the dark.

‘Mona?’

A voice. Not mine. Not Booker’s. ‘Ellis?’ I ask, spine straightened. ‘Where are you?’

But the voice doesn’t come again, and a terrible second lurches past where I realize what I’ve done in letting Booker go away. My chest seizes. My heartbeat rattles my bones.

Why would Booker tell me to go north?

I’m alone. The storm is approaching quickly. All I have is my flashlight, which is nothing, because the beam barely tracks a metre’s diameter. I stand slowly and keep my gaze tracked on the ground for any hint of differentiation, some demarcation in the uninterrupted browns and greens, leaves and dirt and moss. The forest floor isn’t remotely even – it’s a series of steps and ledges and depressions. Difficult even to take two paces in a straight line without needing to adjust my footing, either to avoid a low-hanging branch or roots. I don’t even remember where I’ve come from. I couldn’t guess which way Booker went.

I remember that he dropped something. For a panicked second I can’t find whatever it was but the plastic reflects the tiny bit of light I still have: he’s left his tree ties, and his cellphone.

I pocket them both, then move in the direction I suppose is forward, tying the trees as I go.

How could Ellis have thought I was making all this up? He could have just talked to Booker. He didn’t need to come into the woods, not angry, not at night, not with a hurricane approaching. And why wouldn’t he have marked his path?

But this is my fault more than anyone’s, of course. I was the one who lied to him in the first place.

I know that if I hadn’t lied we’d have never found the truth – but knowing it now, I’m still not satisfied, the sensation of the bite but no chew, and Ellis might die for it.

And my whole body’s set alight. No, no, no. Ellis is not gonna die.