He knows what I’m talking about, gives one last forlorn look in the direction we’ve just come from, and says, ‘I don’t know, kid. Don’t worry about that now.’ Booker leans in, so I can hear him. ‘Home. We’ll get you home, first.’ I don’t know how to admit the place he’s speaking of doesn’t exist.

We traverse the treacherous path down from the top of the cliff face – I can’t imagine Roxy doing this – and we’re helped into the boat, my stomach tumbling with adrenaline.

Booker says something to the man piloting that I can’t hear over the engine.

Once we’re in, Ellis hands his phone to me.

‘What’s this?’

‘When we were talking, I recorded all of it.’

I almost want to laugh. ‘Ellis, no. I can’t believe you did that – no. I’m finished with the podcast.’

‘Honestly, I don’t even care any more.’

‘It’s not mine to tell.’

Ellis looks at me.

‘You’re welcome to. But not me,’ I say.

‘You’re gonna shut the whole thing down?’

‘I don’t know yet. Honestly, Ellis, something happened in the woods. I remembered. Something bad. From when I was a little girl.’ I look at him. ‘I need to tell you about it once we’re home.’

Ellis nods. I know he doesn’t understand yet, but Ellis has confronted enough for now. For now we’re safe.

Within moments, we’ve pulled away from Sandown’s boundaries, far enough that the border of the woods stretches out in front of us, rolling past at impossible speed. I try to place where I might have been. I can’t believe that was the whole world once. What I thought, choking on black water, would be the finale of my world. It’s so seemingly navigable from out here. The grass is bright and silvery with rainwater.

I watch Ellis regard the rolling wood, then the horizon with a sort of wistful, rosy air about him, as though returning from a trip he’d always dreamed of taking. Booker is sat on the lip of the boat, supporting his face with his hand, kneading his brow so hard that thick veins pop on his arm.

I think about Peyton in our dorm, me going on and on about the woods, her sprawled out on her bed, all lovely and angry and parting the sea with her hands.

I’m not a forest, she says.

What are you then?

A big open sky.

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 37

I have enough thoughts for a lifetime on the twenty-minute boat ride to the ferry dock on the mainland.