I’m still reeling from the disappearance of Mola before my eyes. It was like some awesome magic trick: one second she was there, the next … gone. But I can’t think about it, as Susan, Seb and I run through the trees and out on to a large open plain leading to the river and, beyond, the open sea. We have come in a wide U-shape, and our pursuers are by now a fair way behind us. Far enough, in fact, that we slow down and get our breath back.

‘Look!’ says Seb, pointing at a clifftop ahead of us. ‘It’s the priory, I mean … it’s the cliff where the priory will be.’

He’s right. We’re standing exactly where Tynemouth will be, with its ruined castle and priory on the clifftop. A building that will not be built for something like nine thousand years and will be a crumbling ruin by the time I am alive. But the cliff is more or less the same. To our right is the Tyne river, to our left King Edward’s Bay and, beyond it, the Long Sands and Culvercot – all of them unnamed, at least unnamed in English. Beyond the cliff a massive grey storm is building up.

‘Let’s go to the cliff edge,’ I say. ‘We can climb down to the bay.’

‘And then what?’ says Susan.

‘We’ll get away,’ I say, but I already know what she’ll say next.

‘And then what? You have to make a decision, Malky. This is your dream, remember.’

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!’

I close my eyes in fear of the blow and, when I open them, I see the Dreaminator above me. A thin morning light is coming through my curtains. It’s morning.

No, no, no, no! I can’t wake up yet! I close my eyes again, and I’m back in my dream. The stone-club man has taken a step nearer.

‘You have to let go of your self,’ Susan had said.

‘Go to the edge of your dream, Malky. And then go further,’ her dad had added.

I grab Seb by the wrist, feeling the slick of blood beneath my palm, and as the stone club swings at me I push off with my good leg on the edge of the cliff, pulling Seb with me backwards, into the swirling fog, with the rising sun blinding me …

Nothingness rushes up to meet us.