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were flesh and blood, like us.’
    ‘Flesh-and-blood people don’t vanish into thin air.’
    ‘What about the boys who were here earlier? The ones who were dancing around the fire? Were they real boys or ghosts?’
    ‘You weren’t a hound boy last year, were you?’
    ‘No. I wasn’t old enough. You have to be fifteen.’
    ‘If you’d been a hound, you’d know. There’s all sorts of rituals and stuff if you’re a hound.’
    ‘Yeah, I’ve heard about that, the hounds hassling the stag boy, playing pranks, that sort of thing.’
    Mark poked the fire with the stick again. The flames guttered and leaped.
    ‘In the old days,’ he said, ‘it was serious. The hounds distanced themselves from the stag boy, because if they caught him in the Stag Chase, they had to kill him. It meant he was weak, see. Too weak to outrun them. And if he was weak then that meant the land was weak and blight would follow. The crops would fail. The animals would ail and die. There’d be sickness, hunger. Then people would die. So if the hounds caught the stag boy, they killed him. A blood offering to the land, to make it strong again. A sacrifice. That’s bad, isn’t it? That’s savage. But sometimes you have to do bad things to make things right. Sometimes you don’t have a choice.’
    The strange stag boy running, desperate, frightened. Running for his life. That final awful scream.
    A blood offering.
    ‘A sacrifice to what? Bone Jack?’
    Mark shrugged. ‘To the land. It’s a bargain with the gods of the land, I suppose. People have been sacrificing animals and humans to gods for thousands of years, all over the world.’
    ‘Yeah, well, so what? Everyone knows those sorts of things used to happen a long time ago. Torture and witch burnings and human sacrifice and other stuff.’
    ‘Yeah,’ said Mark. ‘This is the twenty-first century. We’re civilised now. We don’t sacrifice people these days. When the land is sick, the government sends men in biohazard suits to kill and quarantine everything. The Stag Chase is just a glorified cross-country race, with costumes and stupid masks and hotdog vans and charity fundraising and TV crews and tourists. But sometimes, when things get really bad, it gets like ancient times again. It’s all blood and darkness again. That’s why you mustn’t be the stag boy.’
    ‘You really think the hounds are going to kill me?’
    ‘Not the hounds. Me.’
    ‘You? You’re full of it, Mark.’
    ‘Life for life,’ said Mark. ‘The stag boy’s life in exchange for my dad’s. I’m going to bring my dad back, make things right. It’s the stag boy who has to die, not you personally. I don’t want to kill you. That’s why you have to pull out of the race. Let some other boy be the stag.’
    ‘This is mad,’ said Ash. He watched Mark in the fire’s glow. ‘Really mad. You’re not going to kill me. You’re not going to kill anyone. Come down off the mountain with me. We’ll talk to my mum. Maybe you can stay with us for a while, get yourself sorted.’
    ‘I am sorted. I’m where I need to be. It’s not like when we were kids, Ash. I’m not going to come home with you and have some supper and then tomorrow we go off downhilling on our bikes somewhere. Those days are gone.’
    ‘Callie’s worried sick about you. Don’t you even care?’
    ‘Callie’s just a kid.’
    ‘She not a kid. She’s fourteen and you’re all she’s got left.’
    ‘She’s OK. She can look after herself. Besides, he was her dad too. I’m doing all this for her as much as for me. We need our dad back. Both of us.’
    Suddenly Ash felt very tired. ‘It’s late,’ he said. ‘I’m going to head off home.’
    ‘Running away again, Ash Tyler?’
    ‘If you say so. I don’t need any more of this crap. Bad enough with Dad at home.’
    ‘At least you’ve still got a dad.’
    ‘Yeah, I know.’
    ‘Go on then. Don’t let me stop you.’
    ‘I’ll come back. Soon.’
    ‘Whatever. I’ll either be here