6

I don’t know if I should stay or go. The guide said it was so easy to get lost. If I stay here, the guide might come across me on my next tour. But it’s a week day, and the next tour isn’t till tomorrow. It’s only about noon now. I can’t stay here the night. What about that story the guide told us? On our way to this cavern we passed a sort of pool.

   “Ah, this is a ghost hot-spot,” said the guide knowingly.

   The boys all leaned in to hear better, naturally.

   “Basically, a young woman was sacrificed here by Celtic druids. And in the 1990s, a pair of men decided to stay here the night for a bet. One fell asleep. The other heard strange screams in the night. He stood up and tried to run away from the noises he was hearing, but ran straight into a wall. He was knocked out for the rest of the night. The first, however, was found with his arm ripped out of its socket. When asked about it he couldn’t remember a thing.”

   I don’t want either of those things to happen to me. I mean, I wouldn’t mind being asleep right through everything, but the fear that would inhabit me beforehand…it would be unbearable.

   I am not a superhero. I cannot bear the unbearable.

   I curl up, clutching my lit torch like a teddy.