I’d figured that we were headed for the Sholt house. But we went to the hospital.

‘Catching’s who you want to see?’ I asked as Dad rolled the car to a stop. ‘You think she knows something that will help you solve Bell’s murder?’

He didn’t answer that. Instead, he said, ‘Before we go in, I need to ask you something. This morning, you said that you’d told Catching I was the person you’d call if you were in trouble. The thing is, Beth … how are you telling Catching anything?’

Oh. Oh. My stomach roiled. ‘Just because people can’t hear you doesn’t mean you can’t tell them things.’

Dad was watching me with a steady, patient expression. I hated that look. It was the one he used when he knew I was lying. ‘I think maybe she can hear you, Beth.’

So he’d figured it out. I slumped in defeat, and his mouth quirked into a smile. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

I looked down at my feet. ‘I don’t know. I just didn’t.’

‘That’s not an answer.’

I shrugged.

‘Well,’ Dad said, ‘I suppose I could always ask Catching why you didn’t—’

My head whipped up. ‘Don’t do that!’

‘If you tell me, I won’t have to.’

I couldn’t have Catching telling Dad that I was wasting my eternity trailing around after a sad old man. Maybe she won’t. Maybe she’ll be nice to him because she’s my friend. But I couldn’t be sure of that. For all I knew, Catching would think she was doing me a favour, by telling Dad the truth as she saw it.

I had to find a way to tell him that wasn’t as harsh as how she’d put it.

‘I … I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to talk to Catching about me,’ I said in a small voice. ‘She – well, she thinks I should move on.’

He frowned. ‘Is there somewhere for you to move on to?’

I opened my mouth to say, No. Of course not. There’s only here. Except the second I did it, the colours flashed into my mind and the words died in my throat. I couldn’t bear to say that the colours weren’t real.

I looked away from Dad, blinking back the traitor tears that had sprung into my eyes.

‘Beth. Is there a place?’

I nodded. ‘It’s full of colours.’

‘Is your mother there?’

I didn’t answer that. He didn’t ask again. Instead, he sat there in silence, watching me with that same steady regard. Waiting me out. ‘Yeah. She is.’

Dad made a choked, hurt noise. I hurried to reassure him. ‘But I’m not going. I’m staying here. With you.’

Except he didn’t seem reassured. If anything, he seemed worried. ‘I never thought you were choosing to stay here! I thought this was just where you were. If there’s a better place, a place with your mother, then isn’t that somewhere you’d like to be?’

No. I like it here. But it was too big a lie to say, and it stuck in my throat.

Dad stared at me for a moment and then whispered, ‘You’re staying because of me. Beth. I’ll be okay.’

I shook my head.

‘I will, I promise you I—’

‘You won’t, Dad! You aren’t. You’re sad.’

Dad’s face crumpled a little around the edges. And I didn’t want to have this conversation anymore. I’d already decided I wasn’t going to leave him until he was okay, and there was nothing he could say that would change my mind. It was just hurting us both to talk about it.

‘I’m going inside to see Catching,’ I told him. ‘To talk about the case. Are you coming?’

‘We can see Catching later! I think we should—’

I left the car, running right through the door and then the hospital walls until I’d reached Catching’s room. I found her sitting on her bed, as always, and spoke in a rush: ‘Dad’s coming, and he knows you can see me. I already told him what you think – about moving on, I mean – so you don’t need to say anything to him about me leaving and him being a sad man, nothing at all!’

I’d just managed to get the last word out when Dad burst in. ‘Beth, we have to talk about this.’

‘We really don’t.’

Unexpectedly, Catching spoke: ‘No, you don’t. Not now, anyway.’

We both turned to look at her. She’s different. Except she wasn’t. It was the same old Catching, only … brighter? Her eyes seemed a little browner, her hair a little darker, and all her edges a little bit more pronounced.

‘You didn’t come here to fight with each other,’ Catching said. ‘You came for the story. You’ll have to sit down, though. It’s not a small ending.’

We were finally going to find out about the fire? Dad had been right when he’d said we needed to see Catching, although I couldn’t see how he’d known she would get to the end of her story today.

I settled onto the bed. Dad stayed where he was. ‘You may as well sit,’ I told him, ‘because I’m not talking about the other stuff, and if you keep trying to, I’ll just leave.’

He stared at me. I stared back until Dad sighed and gave in, pulling a chair out from the wall.

Catching waited until he was sitting by the bed. Then she rested her chin on her knees and started speaking, in a soft, contemplative tone that I hadn’t heard from her before: ‘When I was in the beneath-place, it was stories that got me through. Stories that brought me home.’

She tilted her head to one side, studying me and Dad. ‘But I don’t know where the end of this story is going to take you two.’

Outside, the wind began to gust, throwing dust into the air and blocking out the sunlight. As the room grew darker, the wind grew stronger, swirling past with a sound like rushing water. Weirdly, the sound seemed to be coming from all sides, as if the wind had somehow encircled the room and was blowing inside the hospital.

And Catching began: ‘People can time travel …’