Her wings open and she jumps up in one clean motion, her feet landing on either side of him. Crouching over his middle, she extends her arms and presses her palms against his chest. Her long hair hangs over his body, bits of shell and fishbone gleaming in the tangled black tresses. She arches her back and there’s something so wild and primal about her that I feel self-conscious for watching. She brings her hands over his face and makes a flicking motion, her long fingernails clicking together, and he opens his eyes.

I rush to his side. ‘Tom, it’s me. Can you hear me?’

He stares ahead with a fervid gaze, apparently unaware of the otherworldly creature perched over him. I look at Morgan, but her face is fixed in concentration. She gulps greedily at the air, making a glugging noise deep in the back of her throat, and the sound takes on a rhythm of its own, as if she’s chanting. There are no words but something about it is familiar, like hearing a badly hummed version of your favourite song. On and on she chants, the sound rising and falling, swelling and retreating like the tide.

Her wings unfurl and beat the air, sending a gust of wind into the room. And then something happens that’s so strange I wonder again if I’m dreaming. Her hair lifts from her shoulders and floats upwards, defying gravity to swirl above her head. It makes me think of a mermaid swimming underwater. Her face glows as if lit from within, her eyes no longer cloudy white but ice blue, with huge black pupils at their centre. Everything about her seems brighter, her whole being infused with eerie transcendence.

A thin film slides across her eyeballs with lizard-like speed, so quick I almost miss it. She grasps my hand, and heat flutters in my abdomen and vibrates against my ribcage like the beat of a moth’s wing. Instinctively, I reach out and grip Tom’s shoulder, willing him to be well, and the energy leaves me all at once like an arrow firing, as if my worry had pulled my feelings taut and touching him has released them.