In the distance, our attackers are coming nearer.

‘I don’t understand!’ I wail. ‘I don’t know what to do!’

‘I’m going to wake up any minute, Malky. I can feel it. And you too: you are going to wake up naturally, and if that happens you won’t have Seb with you.’

‘How do you know this?’

She looks at me, pleadingly. ‘I don’t, Malky. I don’t know anything! But what I do know is that you have to let go of yourself. Let go of your self. Allow the … the universe to do its thing and just let it be.’

‘What does that even mean?’ I shout.

We’re on the very edge of the cliff now, and I peer over. Yet, instead of rocks, and waves crashing on to them, it is as though the storm clouds on the horizon have swirled below me. I look up and can see no sea, no horizon – just a grey fog of emptiness and my stomach tightens.

‘I’m scared, Malky,’ says Seb. ‘They’re getting closer.’

Then a man’s voice, with an accent like Mola’s, says, quietly but firmly, ‘Go to the edge of your dream, Malky. And then go further.’

I turn away from the cliff edge and where Susan stood is now a middle-aged man in a simple suit of faded blue cotton, a number printed on his chest. His hair is straight and black and streaked with grey, and a patchy beard clings to his hollow cheeks.

I don’t even need to ask who he is, and I have given up questioning the logic of what is happening.

Susan’s dad.

When he smiles, serenely, and nods in a way I have seen Susan do countless times, it is as though he can read my thoughts and approves.

Susan runs to him, and holds his hand, beaming up at him.

‘What if I jump?’ I say, gazing at the grey void. ‘What will happen?’

‘Go to the edge, Malky,’ says Susan. ‘And then go further.’

Then she and her dad disappear, just like that; like a light going out.

The hunters are getting nearer; I can make out their faces now, and I know there is no way back. Seb and I are trapped on the cliff edge.

‘This is your dream, Malky. You have to control it,’ says Seb.

‘I can’t, Seb. I can’t control anything any more.’

‘Don’t let them catch us,’ he pleads. I’m back to being big brother, feeling responsible for him and terrified that it’s down to me.

But that’s how it is.

They’re much closer now – only metres away – and the one with the club has raised it in readiness for … for what?

When I look at Seb, he just nods.

‘Let’s do it,’ he says. ‘Let yourself go, Malky!’