Eventually we reached St Monica’s once more. Nancy Bailey, with her clipboard, was still there, still looking efficient. I was so filthy, she didn’t recognise me.

‘Has Caleb Wharton arrived?’ I demanded.

She shook her head.

I collapsed into a nearby chair, defeated. All that effort and still I had no idea where he was.

‘Phoebe! You’re here!’ It was Jeannie Tillman, helpful, carrying around a box of cleansing wipes and a large bottle of water. ‘Let’s clean you up,’ she said.

‘You’re here,’ I told her, as if she might not have noticed.

‘I had to evacuate,’ she said. ‘I might as well help. I’m not sure my house made it. Let me help you with your boots.’ She knelt and undid the laces, sliding them off and exposing my socks, wet with sweat. Beneath, my feet were blistered, swollen and sore.

I asked her if she’d seen Caleb. By the time we had moved to Brunton, Caleb had been too old for her primary school class, and I had enrolled him at the local high school. But he’d spent time with Jeannie on her many visits to our house. She’d helped him with his developing art interests, told him he was talented, given him hope.

‘He’ll be with the CFA,’ she told me now. ‘He’ll be fine.’

I knew how dangerous CFA volunteering could be. I couldn’t sit still. I had to look for him, even if walking the streets was the only option left.

They tried to make me stay. Leanne, clutching her baby, implied she’d cry if I left. It was getting late at night and Nancy Bailey invited me to help settle the children, the way she’d ask for help at a church fete.

I pulled my socks and boots back over the raw, red skin of my feet. Someone passed me a torch and a safety hat and a woollen blanket. ‘In case there are still any cinders.’

I walked back out, past the church and towards the centre of Brunton, the entire world had shifted on its axis since then. I walked the streets, clad in one of the brown woollen blankets we’d later use to cover the dead. Looking for Caleb, I reflected on how calm Jack was under pressure, how he always seemed prepared for disaster. He was so frank about war and his difficulty recovering from its nightmares, although what I most admired about him, beginning at my house the day of Caleb’s accident, was his calmness and control…

Where was Caleb? And I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t rest. I wasn’t the only one missing someone. I walked in a crowd of ghosts.

We passed each other, the other searchers and I, coughing and peering with our torch beams through the darkness of smoke and ashes and night. On the other side of Main Road the occasional car crept along. Through the rain of ashes, headlights were like the eyes of animals on the prowl.