Fresh-cut grass. Romy lands on her kneecaps, crumples to her face, and the scent of it enfolds her.

Five seconds. Ten seconds. Fifteen. Grass tickles her cheek, her sore, burning neck. When the world is no longer spinning, she pushes back up to her knees.

A green square, a wicker chair, and four walls of mirrors. Romy blinks. ‘Jesus.’

Her head swims as she takes it in. A line of kneeling Romys, a line of blinking Jays. Endless chairs. Suburban grass. She tips her head back as far as it will go, and there they are again: a tower of pale-faced, bruise-necked girls, of bewildered boys, of rickety chairs, sat in a square of grass.

‘Jesus.’ Romy drops her head back. Her neck spasms, and she rubs it. ‘I feel like I’m Alice in Wonderland. Or a Gwen Stefani video.’ She massages the slope of her shoulders. Too much too soon. ‘Ow.’

Touching a blooming bruise on his temple, Jay winches himself upright. ‘Who’s Gwen Stefani?’ He frowns, almost pouts. ‘I fully agree with ow.’

Romy stares. ‘“Who’s Gwen Stefani?”’ She shakes her head. Her neck twinges. ‘You make me feel old, and I’m only seventeen. Gwen Stefani’—she crosses her legs—‘was my first celebrity obsession. She was weird, and she didn’t give a damn, and I loved her.’

Jay shrugs. ‘Okay.’ Studying the mirrors, he worries at the grass. ‘It’d make more sense if we were Alice in Through the Looking-Glass.’

Romy brushes the ground with her palm. It feels like that fake turf they had at school, a soft, plasticky tickle. ‘Why?’

‘Well.’ Jay shrugs again, his eyes on his boots. ‘We fell through a window, and wound up somewhere weird. It’s more specific than Alice in Wonderland.’

Romy narrows her eyes. A barbed retort gears up in her head, but she fights to hold it in; he’s twelve. The high road mocks her, and she wades toward it. He can throw her words to the dogs if he likes, if it helps him be less scared.

‘Fair enough,’ she says, wading with the best. She even attempts a smile. ‘At least this place is nicer than the church. God’s meant to welcome his children, right, but he seemed a bit pissed off.’

Jay huffs. ‘He did.’ He steals a look at her under his hair. ‘And I don’t know why you ended up with me.’ A ghost of a smirk twitches his mouth. ‘Do you really think Kira’s lucky, though? You called Callum…’

He plucks at the grass. ‘Insufferable,’ Romy finishes. ‘Yeah.’ She shakes her head, gawping at him. It’s her mind, goddammit; can no one stay out? ‘And he is insufferable.’

‘Then why’s Kira lucky?’

Prodding him with her boot, Romy lumbers to her feet. Her body’s as bungled as Frankenstein’s monster. ‘Because he’s pretty,’ she says through a groan. Stretching her spine is a bugger; that iron ring on the church door must have bled from the core of the Earth. ‘If he stopped talking, he’d be stellar.’

Jay screws his nose up. ‘Ew.’

Cleaning her thoughts, Romy shrugs. ‘Keep out of my head, then. Fool.’

‘Jesus.’

The words echo through the tunnel. Kira stops. ‘Was that Romy?’

Callum lifts a hand: listen. They’ve been walking in tight-lipped, tight-gripped quiet for who knows how long, and only the sky has changed. The aurora’s coloured curtains blackened to night, the black night became indigo, and now, the indigo fades into a premature dawn.

‘Or a Gwen Stefani video.’

‘It’s up there somewhere.’ Callum indicates the sky. A hushed heat whispers within her; the dawn is almost as rich as theirs, shared on the top of the mountain.

‘How can it be coming from there?’ she asks. He holds a finger to his lips, but a smile tugs around it. His thumb brushes hers. Perhaps he’s noticed, too.

‘Who’s Gwen Stefani?’

Callum stills. His face unfurls, from amusement, through uncertainty, to grey. Kira’s hope stutters. ‘Is that…?’

‘Jay!’ Jerking into action, Callum kicks off the wall. His fingers brush the colour as he jumps, stretching, but if the sky is solid, he can’t quite reach.

‘Lift me,’ Kira says hurriedly. Her chest is filling with nervous air; they brought Jay with them. ‘Callum.’

She grabs for his arm, but in a puff of red dust, Callum grunts, and jumps again. A foreign look hangs crazed on his face. ‘Jay!’ he bellows. ‘Jay!’

‘Callum.’ Determined, Kira grabs him again.

He wrenches away from her. ‘What?’

‘Lift me up.’ She spreads her hands. That look on his face… ‘If I’m not too heavy, I can sit on your shoulders. If it doesn’t work, we carry on.’ She glances down the rocky tunnel, soft with morning light. ‘We’ll get through somewhere.’

Squashing down her speeding pulse, she watches Callum consider. His dark eyes dart around. His hands flex. His face is harsh. One of them needs to be rational, and for once, it isn’t him.

‘Fine.’ Sighing, he squats. ‘Get on.’

As soon as she’s settled on his shoulders, she’s soaring. ‘Callum!’ she cries, ducking her head, leaving her gut on the floor. Bracing her back, she squeezes her eyes tight shut. ‘For God’s sake.’

Two seconds. Four. Callum steadies himself, gripping her legs. She and the sky don’t collide, and slowly, Kira opens her eyes. ‘Guess I’m not getting an apology then,’ she mutters. Breathe: two, three, four. Breathe: six, seven, eight. The upward rush left her giddy and swooping, and inch by inch, she sits up. ‘Okay.’

Tucking her hair behind her ears, she plants an unceremonious hand on his head, and stretches into the dawn.

‘There’s a hand!’ Jay exclaims. Lowering his voice and clearing his throat, he amends, ‘I mean, Romy. The grass has grown a hand.’

Romy had been knocking on mirrors when he shouted. Fizzing with the shock of the noise, she turns. ‘You what now?’

Jay drops to a crouch beside it, as if the “it” hadn’t scared him. ‘Romy.’ He looks up at her. The hand becomes a fist, bending at the wrist as if knocking on a see-through door.

The grass has grown a hand. The grass has grown a hand.

Slowly, Romy kneels beside it. ‘Mary, mother of god.’

Jay sits back on his heels. ‘I know.’

Shaking her head, Romy leans down. The hand has sprouted straight from the ground. ‘How is that even possible?’ Leaning closer, she peers at it. The pale hand extends its fingers, fluttering through the stalks.

In a rush, unreality hits. ‘Holy shit.’ She grabs the hand. ‘It’s Kira’s.’

Jay blinks at her. ‘It’s Kira’s?’

‘Yes!’ She pinches the little finger. Jesus, god, this is weird. ‘See? The pinky nail is stupidly long. They’re all wonky, and uneven, and there’s two hairbands around the wrist because, you know, one is a lack of preparation. Kira?’

The hand retreats through the grass. ‘No!’

‘It just goes on and on,’ Kira sighs, pulling her fingers back. Air and colour, nothing more. ‘Can you hear anything?’

Callum lowers her down. ‘No,’ he says, as she slides from his shoulders. ‘Maybe they’ve moved away.’

‘Or maybe it wasn’t coming from there.’ Bleakly, Kira considers the tunnel. The red stone is still. ‘Let’s go.’

The words make Romy’s insides plummet. ‘Kira!’ she hollers. No, no, no, they can’t walk away. ‘Kira! Come back!’

‘They can’t hear us.’ Jay balls his fists, drumming on the earth. ‘Callum! We’re up here!’

‘…Nothing else we can do,’ Kira says, but faintly. ‘…Listen hard.’

‘Callum!’ Jay roars. Romy adds her fists to his. ‘Come back! We’re up here!’

Bang, bang, bang. Romy’s hands complain. She wants to scream. She wants to cry. ‘Kira!’ she shrieks. ‘Callum!’

In a field beneath a brilliant sky, another Callum sleeps.