CHAPTER 31

'Are you okay?'

Ethan's voice was coming from miles away. Muffled by water fathoms deep. Travelling through dimensional worm-holes stretching across countries and continents.

I heard it. I knew he was there, standing right next to me as I stared up at the darkening sky through the window. I knew he was looking at me, his gaze no doubt searching, burying, in the way it always did when he looked at me. I knew I should answer him, but I couldn't.

I was thinking about the crucifix. The small, slightly tarnished silver crucifix I used to wear on a chain around my neck when I was a kid. I hadn't thought about it in years, not since I'd dropped it down the drain outside the block of flats where we lived, staring into the dark hole and wondering what it would be like to float away with it.

'Casey?'

'I stole a crucifix from my mum once,' I said, still looking up at the skies, as if I was looking at them for the first time.

'You stole it?'

'Yeah. I was walki