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involved with Diana and me.’
    ‘Oh, I’m sure it’s nothing to do with me.’
    I did tell him to become better friends with her. Even without knowing everything about the situation, it seemed wrong that Wolfboy wouldn’t get to know his niece.
    She’s finally able to look at me properly. ‘Well, I happen to think it has everything to do with you. Whatever happened afterwards. Those two boys, Gram and Jethro …I don’t think talking about feelings was encouraged much in their family.’
    ‘Oh. Right.’ It’s not the right response, but my head is spinning. Ortolan has brought up a painful topic, something she’d rather not think about, purely to make me feel better.
    ‘You should visit me at my studio, I’d love to see you. Jethro doesn’t need to know about it.’
    ‘I’d like that.’
    Ruth emerges from the staffroom cautiously, just as Ortolan scoops up her bag.
    ‘Thank you, girls,’ she says, smiling at me before she leaves.

    Something weird happens when I leave work. I go to the station as usual, but when I take the escalators down to the subway platforms I find myself stopping a level early. I’m on a northbound train, in the Friday evening crush, before I’ll admit to myself what’s going on.
    At Panwood I leave the train, swept along in a tide of commuters who soon flow past me and away. After a few minutes of pretending to look at a parched flower clock, I decide that I might as well continue on.
    I walk slowly through concrete-bound narrow streets that trap the summer heat. The closer I get, the more the street traffic thins out. Soon I’m walking alone. The turrets of the Diabetic Hotel climb above the buildings and the sight makes me nervous. The Diabetic marks the border, the unofficial gateway to Shyness.
    I can still turn back.
    This is only the second time I’ve seen the transition to Darkness during the daytime. The first time I was heading away from the Darkness and Wolfboy, going home after that night. It was early morning and the daylight in Panwood was still dim. Now, though, the summer sun islast-gasp bright at six-thirty, and the difference between Shyness and Panwood is much more obvious.
    My heart has risen in my throat and I feel almost dizzy with what I’m doing. What am I doing?
    I stand on the light side of Grey Street and look across into the filmy black night that curtains Shyness. Behind me the automatic door of a supermarket opens and closes, disgorging shoppers. I move across Grey Street, each step taking me closer to the night. A strong smell of smoke hangs in the air.
    Once I get close, I stop and shut my eyes, breathless with the thought that Wolfboy is on the other side of this boundary. That I’m playing roulette. That he could be walking down the dark side of Grey Street. That he could turn towards the edge of Shyness, and see me.
    What are the chances of that happening? Zilch?
    I was so sure he was going to call that for the first five days I didn’t even worry that he hadn’t. Then, after that, every day was torture. I made up excuses for him. Maybe he lost my phone number, maybe Doctor Gregory had kidnapped him, maybe aliens came and took him back to their home planet.
    Then, once I’d accepted the awful truth, I pushed him from my mind. I kissed someone else. I concentrated on school. I got over him. And then Ortolan walks into the Emporium, talking about how that night changed him.
    I take a deep breath.
    A hunched figure shuffles along the footpath on the Shyness side of Grey Street, coalescing out of the gloom. He bends over an overflowing bin, picking through the rubbish. There are no lights on in the shopfronts opposite me. I look up to the telephone lines to see if I can spot any tarsier running overhead, but even they’re somewhere else.
    The man finds a squashed packet of cigarettes and crows audibly when he finds a lone cigarette left. He shuffles off without looking at me. When I stick my hand into the Darkness it’s like easing myself into