Nat remembered how he had sat in sulky silence as Jude urged their ancient camper van through the parched countryside. He had looked up from his book in alarm when she’d pulled off the road on the edge of a dense wood. There was a lot of purply-black smoke pouring out of the engine.

“Stay inside,” Jude had said bluntly, dragging open the rusty door on the driver’s side. As she struggled to get the cap off the radiator to put some more water in, Nat couldn’t help feeling a blinding flash of anger at his dad for getting them into this mess and leaving them to cope on their own. He watched glumly as two enormous black crows unraveled the pink innards from an unidentifiable squashed animal.

When Jude returned, she breathed a sigh of relief and popped the lock down on the door, motioning to Nat to do the same.

“Nearly there now,” she said breathlessly. She turned to look at him, her forehead creased with worry. “I want you to promise me one thing, Nat.”

Nat dragged his gaze away from the carrion crows.

“I want you to promise me that you won’t go into these woods alone, ever.”

He had rolled his eyes at her. “Funny you should mention that,” he said sarcastically. “I was just about to wander off on my own into those horrible-looking woods, because that’s the sort of thing I do for fun.”

“Don’t give me any lip,” snapped Jude uncharacteristically. “It’s just … well, I suppose it’s because I was always frightened of them as a child. People have a habit of going missing in them.”

Nat glanced nervously at the woods. Did the trees look closer together than when they had arrived? Surely not, but there was something spooky about them: impenetrable and threatening. Nat shivered, wishing they were anywhere but here.

When their old camper van had eventually trundled into the village, there was a sign to welcome them:

As far as Nat could see from the amount of roadkill littered about the place, this request hadn’t been taken too seriously by the car-driving Temple Gurnians. Someone had scrawled underneath in black marker, Twinned with the Moon.

Now, back in his room, Nat’s thoughts returned to his dad. Although it is very wrong to listen at doors (you rarely hear anything good about yourself), he couldn’t help overhearing his grandparents in conversation a couple of days ago. He’d hovered outside the kitchen, checking regularly over his shoulder in case his mum caught him.

“And I worry about that poor little soul,” he’d heard Apple say.

“Which one?” asked Mick, his voice muffled by the piece of bread and butter he had scavenged.

“Nat. He’s too sensitive.”

“Oh, he’ll be all right,” said Mick. “Bit imaginative, that’s all. Remember Gary?”