You already know where to find me, Ash. You already know.

I wake up gasping for air.

Mia’s fleeting voice rings in my ears, her final words an echoing whisper that fades into silence.

I can’t hear the wind or the rain anymore. The storm must have passed.

Wan starlight shines through the window – it’s still dark outside, probably a few hours until sunrise.

I don’t have much time.

I slip out of bed, shivering as it dawns on me that I fell asleep wearing my rain-soaked silk dress. I’m in too much of a hurry to get changed into something warmer, so I pull the cream-colored chunky knit blanket off the end of the bed, and wrap it around myself before slipping on a pair of flats.

As quietly as I can, I open my bedroom door, and creep stealthily down the passageway, sure that at any moment one of the old wooden floorboards will creak and give me away. I pass Kitty’s room, Lyall’s, Elliot’s. As I reach Felix’s door, I pause. It’s closed, and some part of me feels like barging in, demanding an explanation for his earlier behavior.

The way he was looking at me.

The way his eyes widened with desire, and perhaps also despair, as he inspected the bleeding wound on my foot.

The way he seemed to lose control.

As I remember the gash I got on my sole while walking through the dark forest earlier, I realize with a jolt that I can’t feel any pain in my foot.

Gingerly, I flex my foot in my shoe. Nothing. No pain at all. I don’t need to take off my ballet flats to know that the gash is completely healed up, erased just like the bite Felix left on my neck.

The strangeness of it all sends a shiver down my spine, and I clasp the knitted blanket tighter around my shoulders. I continue to creep along the passage, my head swirling with confusion.

I make it all the way to the bottom of the spiral staircase without making a single sound, but the second I reach the landing, I tumble forward and land in a heap on the floor with a loud thump.

Something at the foot of the stairs tripped me up.

Something that I am now lying on top of.

I lift myself up onto my elbows, and almost scream when I see Alastaire’s face inches away from my own. I’m sprawled out on top of him. I can feel the rise and fall of his chest beneath me, the beating of his heart.

His eyes are closed, and he’s breathing soundly, his sleep apparently unbroken despite me tripping over him.

I guess that’s what drinking a whole bottle of champagne in one go will do to you. He’s dead to the world. Thank god.

He was out cold in the middle of the room with Lyall when I came home earlier, so I’m guessing he must have woken up and dragged himself to the stairs in a drunken attempt to get into bed before passing out again.

Please don’t wake up please don’t wake up please don’t wake up.

I tense my muscles, ready to shift myself off of him, when suddenly his whole body quivers, and his arms wrap around me, squeezing me tightly against his chest.

“Mmmm cupcake…” he mumbles. “Mmm… angel… my… lovhejmhasrfrwy wmdej nrghun…”

His sleep talking turns into gibberish midsentence, and he falls silent again.

His arms are still tightly wrapped around me.

I cringe internally at the thought of Felix finding me at the foot of the staircase wrapped up in Alastaire’s arms, our bodies pressed together tighter than sardines.

He would probably murder Alastaire. Literally. I need to get out of this without waking him up, and quickly.

I exhale deeply, and tuck my arms in as close to my body as possible. Then, holding my breath, I slowly wiggle myself downwards, terrified that Alastaire’s going to open his eyes at any moment. After a few seconds I manage to get my head under his arms, which slump against his chest as I pull myself free.

I roll over onto my back next to Alastaire, as he mumbles “nmmm… m… cupk…” 

I belly crawl away from him across the living room, like a soldier in enemy territory. I’m probably being an idiot, but there’s always a chance that one of the other guys passed out in the room woke up after the ruckus I just made, so it’s best to stay low.

I finally round the corner of the doorway, and stand up. I look back into the living room at Alastaire and realize with horror that the knitted blanket I had wrapped around my shoulders for warmth is now in Alastaire’s arms, a detail I missed earlier. It must have slipped off when I maneuvered myself out of his embrace.

It’s too risky to go back and get it.

And it’s not like anyone’s going to realize the blanket is from my bed.

Hopefully.

I turn my back on the living room and move down the entrance hall, opening the huge stained glass front door as quietly as I can.

As I shut it behind me, I let out the breath I didn’t even realize I was holding.

I look out over the clearing.

The sky is still a deep, dark blue studded with white stars, but I can feel the building energy of the new day about to burst over the horizon.

There’s not long until daybreak.

I have to hurry.

I run down the cabin’s steps, and sprint over the fallen leaves and mossy stones that litter the glade. I don’t understand why, but somehow I know exactly which direction to go, like there’s an invisible thread pulling me forwards.

Even though the moss-slicked stones are wet and slippery, my footing is sure, and I seem to glide over the ground, faster and more gracefully than I’ve ever run before.

My pale blue dress, still wet from the storm earlier, clings to me coldly, but I ignore it.

The forest seems to race by on either side as I run, and the smell of wet earth is replaced for a while by the briny scent of salt; I can hear waves crashing against rocks, the echoing cries of seagulls, and a distant lullaby – but I ignore these distractions, focusing on my destination.

The forest is playing tricks. But I won’t be lured off my path.

Gradually the sound of the sea dies down, and I can see light up ahead, a new clearing.

I step out into the graveyard. I’ve never entered it from the forest, having only come here before through the gate behind the Ninth Order of Angels Catholic Church.

And yet I know exactly which direction to walk in, as the invisible force pulls me through row after row of tombstones, mausoleums choked in ivy.

The starlight shining off the marble and ancient white stone illuminates the scene enough for me to see my way, and I stride confidently through the soft silver afterglow.

She’s here. I can feel it.

My heart stops as she comes into view, several yards away.

Mia is sitting on her gravestone, her feet tucked under her as she quietly plaits her hair.

The starlight seems to shine straight through her translucent form, bathing her tombstone in radiance.

I gasp, and she looks up, smiling.

“Hey Ash,” she says. “This is way better, right? It’s so much easier to talk here.”

It’s Mia. Mia. My Mia, gone forever, back again. Mia.

I stumble forward, my eyes blurring with tears, before I sprint at her, closing the distance between us in only seconds. I fall forward onto my knees and hug her tightly. I’m half-surprised when I don’t fall straight through her, and I feel her cold, solid, undeniable form in my arms.

I’m blubbering like a baby, howling as I hold her in my arms, the shock and joy and sorrow all mixed into one.

“You’re real,” I cry. “It’s really you. You’re really here. Mia.”

I feel cold, damp fingers combing my hair then gently twisting the ends, just like she always used to do.

“Of course I’m here,” Mia says. “I couldn’t just leave you.”

I wipe my tears away, noticing blood trickling down her forehead, and a crimson trail flowing from a deep gash on her neck. She smells like blood and saltwater, and her skin is corpse-pale, like moonlight on mist.

I ask the question that I could never in a hundred years have imagined I’d someday ask anyone.

“Mia, are you a…a…”

“A ghost?” She asks, her smile widening. “I guess. I mean, I don’t see what else I could be.”

“But why?” I ask, a fresh round of tears prickling my eyelids. “Shouldn’t you have… I don’t know…”

“Gone to heaven?” She asks, cocking an eyebrow in amusement.

I nod. I’ve never been entirely sure what I believe happens after you die, but I’m pretty sure that it’s not this. Not for most people, anyway.

“I don’t know about all that stuff, to be honest,” she says, before laughing. “God, I’m like, the most clueless ghost ever. I’m dead, and I still don’t even know if there’s a heaven or a hell or a god or the big bang or any of that. All I know is that I couldn’t leave you.”

“Leave me?” I say.

“Yeah,” she says. “When we were on the bus… after I fell and everything went black… there was this sort of… not light exactly… more like a warmth, or an idea. A new place. I knew I was meant to go there, and it would be easy, like stepping into another room. The others were all going, even Evan, but I didn’t see you, so I waited. And waited. I didn’t understand why you weren’t following me, I mean, everyone else was. The others left, and I stayed in the grey.”

“The grey?” I repeat.

Mia sighs. “Yeah, that’s what I call it. It’s sort of like… a nowhere place. And it’s soooo boring. In church the priest mentioned Purgatory and Limbo this one time. I kinda think that’s what’s happening to me. Like, these states in between life and death. Sort of… being stuck, I guess.”

“So you’re stuck here because of me?” I ask, bursting into tears again. “It’s my fault?”

“C’mon Ash, it was my own decision,” Mia says. “I chose to stay. And I’m glad I did. There’s something I’ve been trying to tell you, but I couldn’t before. It’s only recently I’ve been able to cross over, because of the forest I think, or the boys…”

“You mean Fable?” I ask.

“Hah, yeah, Fable,” she says. “Jealous as I am that you’re hanging out day and night with the boys we both worshipped once upon a time, I’m also worried Ash. There’s something following you. And they’re connected to it.”

“You’ve seen it?” I ask, thinking back on the vacant shape, the mass of shadows, the writhing darkness I’d seen in my nightmares and glanced out of the corner of my eye from time to time.

“Sort of,” she says. “It’s not exactly that I’ve seen it. More like… I’ve felt it. Or heard it, even. It’s really hard to describe.”

“Is it Bea?” I ask, thinking back on how she burst into flames of black fire in the woods just days ago, before re-appearing totally fine at her cottage.

Mia laughs at this. “Of course not. She was your gran’s BFF, right? She’s probably one of the few people you should be trusting right now. Although she probably only knows as much as you do. You need to speak to someone who knows more about this thing that’s after you.”

“But how?” I ask, exasperated. "I don't even know where to begin." 

“Well, from what I can tell, it’s something that’s attached to you,” she says. “Not just you though… it’s kind of like… visualize it as a black thread that’s… no, that’s not right. Ok. Imagine a spider. That’s spun this sort of web that you, and Bea, and-”

“Fable,” I whisper.

“-yeah, Fable are also caught up in it. But the web isn’t just in our time. It’s like… chains, or a promise, a song, bloodlines, something that goes across years, centuries, binding, you together… it’s… god, I’m sorry, it’s just so hard to describe this stuff. But it started a long time ago, I can feel that. It’s old. Really, really old. And it’s coming for you. It’s been chasing you all through time, and it keeps on catching up with you. Bad things happen when it does.”

I feel the hairs rise up on the back of my neck.

“So what do I do?” I ask.

“You find out more,” Mia says. “Go and speak to Bea. See if she knows anything, though I doubt it. Do whatever you can to find out what’s happening, and find out quickly. And find the beach. If this thing’s as ancient as I think, then it started a long time ago, and if you find out why it’s after you, maybe you can stop it. You might have to go to where it all began. But you have to hurry. It’s almost here.”

Birdsong breaks out in the purple-leaved plum tree overhanging the grave. The stars are fading in the sky, which is gradually turning from royal blue to dark lavender.

“I have to go now,” Mia says, her voice sounding suddenly distant, faint.

“No!” I cry, falling forward and holding her again. “Don’t go.”

Mia hugs me back tightly. “It’s not my decision babe.”

“When can I see you again?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” Mia says. “It’s not easy to leave the grey. But I’ll try.”

My arms go limp around her as she begins to fade, like mist dissolving in sunlight.

“I almost forgot,” her voice is a barely audible whisper, coming from far, far way. “I think it’s going to try use him. Be careful. Don’t trust…”

Her words fade into silence on the breeze.

She’s just gone.

On my knees, I drop my elbows down to the ground. I lay my head on the cold earth of Mia’s grave. 

And I weep.