I have to keep going. I spread myself out like an explosion and howl. Every direction. I’m not Mona. I’m a feeling. I’m a black hole. I’m this whole island. I’m the ocean. I’m a liar. I’m a liar. I’m a liar.

Rain lashing my face and eyes and brain.

My arm throbs in time with my heartbeat.

The thought first quickens into my head – I’m going to die out here. I hear it so loud at first I think someone else has said it. Then, I’m going to die alone out here. Ellis is going to die alone out here.

What did Booker say?

North. He said north.

The rain eases off slightly, the edge of it dulled, the howl a whimper. I look up at the sky and that’s cleared, too.

It’s the eye, I realize. I’m smack in the middle, effectively its pupil. And it’s so beautiful – really – I can’t believe how beautiful it is out here. I throw my head back as if in prayer to the pinprick stars. And there it is. Orion.

Orion waves,

Orion waves …

The belt’s right there, framed like a painting.

I move forward in its light for what feels like a long time. I don’t think of anything besides warmth.

Soon the clouds are closing back in and the familiar howl of the wind re-emerges. I savour the last bit of moonlight, am clinging on to it for dear life, when I stumble upon a small cave tucked away in a groove in the undergrowth – and I can’t believe my luck. I nestle myself into a slimy nook a few paces inside and curl myself into a small, pathetic ball, the wrath of my delirious trembling now seismic.

I swear I hear music. No, unreality, I recognize it. It’s in my head.

It’s ‘Glass Daughter’.

I’m shivering like a blade of grass.

The music disappears as quickly as it had arrived.

The peace is so momentary. I watch as the rain picks up again, and after a moment my sluggish brain realizes what’s happening – there’s water running into the cave.

I try to scramble upwards but everything hurts and I can’t see properly, and my battered feet slip and I fall into a previously unseen crater in the rock. It’s impossibly quick, the time it takes for the water to rise to my stomach, then my shoulders, and I can’t swim out because the water is moving too fast

and I see her. Traipsing towards the summit.

Go and take her out, Celeste. I’ve got work to do. I’ve got anything else to do.

It doesn’t matter what Dad said. It just matters that he wasn’t there and Celeste and I were.