While her phone is out, she decides to have a look at the pictures she has taken this morning, and gasps a little at the first, snapped just as they were leaving the FTOF. It's Beansy with his bag dangling from a stick over his shoulder as he steps, smiling, off the edge of a stump and into thin air. She glances from the phone to the card in Marianne's lap and sees exactly the same composition. Marianne lifts it to put it back in the pack, but Deborah stops her.

'Look,' she says, showing her the phone.

'How appropriate,' Marianne observes. 'The Fool. Couldn't have picked a better model.'

'I didn't choose anything,' Deborah says, a little disappointed (but in another way a little relieved) that Marianne doesn't find it spooky.

Deborah nudges the joystick on her phone to view the next pic as Marianne invites Cameron to turn over another card. The shot shows Matt hanging upside down by one foot, his other tucked behind his knee. Cameron reaches for the deck and turns over the Hanged Man. Again, the composition is identical, right down to the curiously serene smile on his face.

'Marianne,' she says, showing her the phone again and trying to keep a tremor from her voice.

'f.u.c.k,' Marianne responds, this time leaving Deborah under no doubt that she does find it spooky. 'That is . . . that is out there.'

'Jesus,' Cameron agrees. 'Hey, Adnan, mate, you gotta see this. Let's hear your quantum physics explain this s.h.i.t.'

Marianne shows Adnan the two cards as Deborah pa.s.ses him the phone.

'That's the order Cameron just drew these, too,' Deborah tells him.

Adnan has a look at the two images. The similarity of the composition is unsettling, he would admit.

'Are you familiar with tarot cards?' he asks Deborah.

'Not really. Marianne showed me some last night, but . . .'

'But you have seen them before?'

'Yes.'

Adnan nods. 'Pattern recognition,' he says. 'It's one of the human traits that helped us get out of the caves and make it to here.' He points up at the sky. 'We see faces in the clouds because we latch on to things that make sense in the chaos. Seeing those cards last night is what prompted you to push the b.u.t.ton when something resembling the same images appeared in front of you. No mystic forces required.'

Again, Deborah feels a mixture of relief and disappointment.

'Isn't there room in your scientific world for a little magic?' Marianne asks.

Adnan sits up straighter and smiles, a response that Radar knows him well enough to read.

'Aw f.u.c.k, you've set him off. Don't go there, Marianne.'

'No, I'm interested,' she insists.

'You're familiar with Aleister Crowley, I take it?' he asks. Marianne nods. 'Well, as someone said of his supposed wizardry, "the only problem with magic is that it doesn't work".'

Marianne laughs. Adnan is pleased to see that she has taken it in good spirit; more pleased that she appears to have a response.

'It's true, from a practical point of view, but he missed the point. Magic is about the realm of the imagination, about exploring the human subconscious.'

'So you'd admit it's all just . . . metaphors and symbols.'

'Kind of. But that's selling it extremely short. Look.'

Marianne reaches into her backpack and fishes out her book on demonology.

'You bring books up mountains?' Cameron asks.

'I bring books everywhere. You never know when you might get a quiet five minutes to read.'

Adnan almost apologetically produces a Michio Kaku paperback from his own bag, just popping it up for a second as a gesture of solidarity to Marianne and a two-fingers to Cam.

Marianne flicks through her volume, showing Adnan several plates depicting different demons from a variety of cultures. He sees demons with pitchforks, with horns and pointed tails; some demons crawling on walls, others with wings, hovering in the air.

'These are from all different societies, different religions, different eras,' she says. 'Empires that rose and fell . . . and yet they all have their own myths of the same thing. Ancient Greece, Mexico, China . . . Often very similar demons too. You can say they're purely symbolic, just an image or an idea that spreads between humans. But why did that same image spring up independently in cultures that have had no contact?'

'That doesn't mean there is is such a thing as demons, though,' Adnan argues. 'The idea could be something primal, something hard-wired to the human sub-conscious that-' such a thing as demons, though,' Adnan argues. 'The idea could be something primal, something hard-wired to the human sub-conscious that-'

Adnan cuts himself off as he realises he has just echoed what Marianne already said.

'See? Magic.'

'I guess that's why G.o.ds and demons don't show up on each other's turf. We have Bernadette at Lourdes, and the kids at Fatima or Medjogorje seeing Mary, but little kids in European villages never see Vishnu or Ganesh or any of the mult.i.tude of Hindu G.o.ds, while n.o.body in India has visions of the Madonna.'

'We all have localised myths of the same archetypes,' Marianne says. 'Creation myths, mother G.o.ddess myths, rival sibling myths.'

'Like the one about the son of G.o.d who was betrayed and killed, only to rise again, and through whose resurrection all mankind could achieve eternal life?' Adnan suggests, eyeing Marianne closely to see how she likes her heresy. 'Name of Osiris?' he continues. 'Worshipped in Egypt fifteen hundred years before Christ?'

'Son of Geb, the sky G.o.d, and Nut, the earth G.o.ddess,' Marianne says, letting him know this is not news and that he he is on is on her her turf. 'And if you want more Christ antecedents, you've got Prometheus - bringer of light to man, similarly punished by being brutally hung up and his side pierced. turf. 'And if you want more Christ antecedents, you've got Prometheus - bringer of light to man, similarly punished by being brutally hung up and his side pierced.

'All over the planet, we've been telling ourselves the same stories since the dawn of time. You can say they're only stories, only "metaphors and symbols" as you put it, but I think they're more than that. Myths are like truths we somehow knew about the universe and about ourselves but didn't quite understand, and didn't always even understand why we knew them. For instance, civilisations all over the world worshipped the sun as a G.o.d that gave birth to Earth. Thousands of years later we discovered that the Earth was was actually created from the sun as part of the debris that was whirling around it four and a half billion years ago.' actually created from the sun as part of the debris that was whirling around it four and a half billion years ago.'

Adnan wears a strained expression, reluctant but duty-bound to disagree.

'I take your point, but they were worshipping the wrong sun.'

'Here we go,' Radar says, flinging himself backwards as if in recoil.

'Our sun isn't actually hot enough to fuse hydrogen to helium. The sun that "gave birth" to us died billions of years ago in a supernova, which created the higher elements that make up our solar system. And that means that every one of us here is literally made of stardust.'

Marianne simply stares at him for a moment, with an expression he can't read at all, and which he fears for a moment will turn to one he has seen on dozens of faces before, most frequently Radar's. Then she speaks: 'That is the coolest thing I have ever heard.'

Adnan says nothing, but his honest response to what she said would comprise precisely the same words.

'. . . and somebody used the word whirlwind - Mich.e.l.le, it was - to describe what we're all going through, because we're feeling so many things at once, almost like forces out of our control.'

They're all gathered - everybody - in a tight circle, seated on the ground with their lunches digesting inside them. With the landscape rolled out beneath them it feels to Heather like they're on a separate plane, higher than the world, detached from their normal reality. Blake chose his moment well. If they can't talk about this here, then they may never talk about it at all. His voice is mellifluous but natural, infusing the atmosphere with calm. He speaks softly but audibly over the breeze, without resorting to that elevated priestly register all men of the cloth could slip into: he wants them to know he's talking with them, not at them.

'We're all feeling loss,' Blake continues. 'We're all feeling pain. We're all feeling shock. We're all feeling anger.'

Heather can't help but glance at Kirk, and notes that she is not the only one. His arms are folded and his face is stony, hard-set, determined not to betray any emotion.

'And all of that is right. All of that is what we need to feel, in order to get through this. We need to feel it, but we need to express it too, because you'd be amazed how many of us here think we're the only one nursing a particular feeling, or harbouring a certain thought. It's only once it's out in the open that you discover you're not alone. Just say what you need to: it's why we're here. Don't worry about what anyone thinks of you for saying it either: this mountain is like an extension of my confessional. What gets said up here does not come back down the hillside with us. Anyone who casts up anything spoken here today will be committing a grave betrayal of us all.'

Rocks looks across to the other side of the circle: all the heads are down, bowed more sincerely than during any prayer, hiding reticent faces. This could be the longest silence this lot has collectively engaged in throughout their entire school careers.

It stretches beyond a full minute, all of them left to their own solemn contemplation as the cold wind gusts about their ears. Father Blake offers no prompting, no pressure, though the longer it goes on, the harder it will be for anyone to go first.

Then a voice breaks the deadlock, just a few feet to Rocks' right. It's wee Caitlin, which might surprise some but not him. His money was always on it being one of the quieter, more dutiful ones that contributed first; the one time the loudmouths keep it zipped.

'I was there,' she says. 'In the hall, putting my chemistry folder in my locker. I can remember that that's what I was carrying. I can remember this sudden rise in a lot of voices, and seeing Andrew pushing Matthew. They both banged into the lockers right beside me. I can remember it really clearly. But then after that, it's like a curtain comes down inside my head. I was there. It happened right in front of me, but my mind won't let me think about it. All I can think about is . . . Andrew's mum and dad . . . I'm sorry . . .'

Caitlin fills up and can't go on. No one seems prepared to fill the void, keeping her grief in the spotlight. Rocks feels for her, wishes somebody else would wade in, one of the teachers maybe. Then to his own surprise he finds himself speaking, just saying something to bail the la.s.sie out.

'I was there too, and I wish I had the curtain thing Caitlin's talking about.' He's aware of Kirk's head coming up, flinching in astonishment and, no doubt, dismay. f.u.c.k him, though. He's helping n.o.body with this bottled-up s.h.i.te. 'I was on the other side of the hall when Dunnsy went for Matt. I started making my way over. I was gaunny pull Dunnsy away and calm him doon, but when a fight starts, there's always a swarm, and I never got there in time. Then I remember the swarm just melting away. It was so quiet. I don't know if it really was quiet or if it's just like my memory of it has no soundtrack and I see it in silence, no voices.'

Rocks can picture it all again as he speaks. He trembles, suddenly colder, like his body has just switched off whatever force-field was protecting him from the climate on top of a highland hill in December.

He catches Kirk's eye. The big man is looking at him like he can't believe he's doing this, like just talking about it is a f.u.c.king betrayal.

'I was scared,' Rocks says, as though in answer to Kirk. 'Or I thought I was scared, but it was mostly shock. Scared wasn't what I was feeling right then. Scared is what I've been feeling ever since. I used to think nothing that bad could really happen to you. You read about stuff, you see some horrible things on telly or the internet, but it never seems real. I know we're made of flesh and bones, but-'

He has to cut himself off. Despite Father Blake saying they ought to talk about whatever they need to, it feels wrong to articulate this. He doesn't feel he has the right to describe what he saw. You can't share this out. You can't ask anyone else to carry it.

He's seen a lot of blood at school. Who hasn't? If there's a fight, chances are somebody's getting their nose burst, and he's seen some bad ones. Dished out some bad ones, if truth be told. He was amazed and, to be honest, not a little ashamed when he saw how much Tommy Lafferty bled when he battered him in third year, but it was only blood, only fluid.

Barker didn't just stab Dunnsy, though: he gutted him. Rocks saw intestines, ribs and f.u.c.k knows what else spilled out on to the polished grey floor tiles. He learned a truth right then that he can never unlearn.

'We're just meat,' he says. 'So fragile. Since then, I've found myself jumping back at the kerb when cars go by too fast. My mum asked me to chip some potatoes and I couldnae do it because I got freaked out holding the knife. I'm amazed any of us make it this far. I'm amazed we got here as a species.'

He looks at Kirk again, and this time Rocks is the one glaring an accusation. Can't you f.u.c.king see this? he's asking. Kirk looks away, down between his feet, maybe just a little humbly.

Rocks has nothing more to say, but he doesn't feel self-conscious in the next silence; he feels wide open but not vulnerable. He catches Caitlin's eye and finds a look of teary solidarity.

'We're fragile, but we're also precious,' says Radar. 'That's why it's so f.u.c.kin' unfair.'

Guthrie flinches, but gets a warning shot from Blake.

'Dunnsy wasnae even seventeen yet,' he goes on. 'f.u.c.kin' Barker took away everything, not just took Dunnsy away from us, but took away everything he'd ever be. It's just so f.u.c.kin' . . . forever, man. No second chances. No saved games.'

'That's what I can't get past either,' ventures Dazza. 'I keep expecting Dunnsy to walk into a cla.s.sroom.'

'There's a school of thought in quantum physics that says he has.'

It's Adnan who speaks, eliciting a glare from Dazza warning that this better not be him just geeking out at a time like this. But Adnan's not trying to be facetious or inappropriate: he thinks some of them may genuinely find this comforting.

'It's known as Many Worlds theory. In a parallel universe, Dunnsy is still alive and we never came here on this trip.'

'Oh, come on,' Dazza says irritably. 'Load of s.h.i.te. This is serious, Adnan.'

'So am I. This isn't whacked-out fringe stuff. More physicists accept the existence of parallel universes these days than deny it. It's one of the possible implications of the quantum uncertainty principle. At every quantum juncture, the universe splits, creating an infinite number of parallel universes. Right here, where we sit, we are co-existing with infinite, slightly varied versions of ourselves and our world, and in one of those - in many of those, in fact - Dunnsy never died and we're doing something else of a Sat.u.r.day lunchtime. There's more evidence to suggest this than there is to support the existence of Heaven or h.e.l.l.'

'So where, physically, are these other universes?' Rosemary asks, suddenly wanting to get a.n.a.lytical now that her religion has been challenged. 'I mean, I've heard you ask where Heaven is when the universe is so huge. Where, then, is this multiplicity of universes?'

'It's right here. They're all right here in different waveforms. But it's like our perception is a radio and we can only tune into one frequency. We can only follow one branching path of our own reality.'

Dazza feels his hackles fall. He actually likes the sound of this: that he'd be better thinking of Dunnsy living out his life the same as the rest of them than thinking of him in Heaven, which has in recent years started to sound more and more like just a consoling thought for the living rather than a reality for the dead.

Guthrie's natural inclination to go on the defensive at Adnan's dismissal of Heaven and h.e.l.l is derailed by the tantalising nature of what this alternative offers. In another version of reality, he left his office a few seconds earlier, a few seconds later, never encountered the fourth years, and got there in time to intervene.

Deborah feels a shudder as she thinks of the parallel universe in which she pressed Send and shared that photo. She's ostracised, in lesbian h.e.l.l, maybe looking at expulsion and even the s.e.x-offenders register. One click, a no to a yes, a zero to a one, that's all it would have taken to split her universe into two vastly different paths.

'Is this maybe why we can feel people once they've gone?' asks Mich.e.l.le. 'Or why we sometimes say we feel like someone walked over our grave?'

A number of heads nod, a murmur echoing approval of this suggestion.

'No,' answers Matt, silencing it. 'There's complete decoherence. We can't interact with branching parallel paths.' He says it flatly, typically oblivious to the fact that he's slamming a door in the face of their hope. That's Matt for you, Adnan reflects: can't get a word out of him for ages, then he chooses to voice something that would have been better left unsaid.

'But you said last night,' Ewan appeals to Adnan, 'if we could move in the fifth dimension we could travel between universes.'

Adnan shakes his head, wishing he could tell him otherwise. 'Ironically, if we could access higher dimensions, we could reach the furthest points in s.p.a.ce, but we couldn't reach the parallel version of our own reality that's right alongside us. Once it's gone, it's gone.'

There's silence again after he says this, leaving Adnan feeling like it's his fault. He lifted them for a moment only to drop them again, albeit with a lot of help from Matt. Thus he's un accustomedly grateful when Rosemary wades back in.

'That's why Heaven is a much better concept,' she says. 'Because even Adnan would have to admit that there is a possibility that we can reach there and be reunited with our lost loved ones. Whereas there's no possibility of seeing them again in the worlds he suggested. Is that right?'

Adnan nods. He tries to be magnanimous and offers a little smile, but he's always uncomfortable giving up concessions to faith-heads. This is partly because he feels it's never reciprocated, but more so because it's like giving money to a junkie: you know they're just going to use what you gave them to make their problem worse.

'Well I just hope there's a h.e.l.l so that that wee c.u.n.t's paying properly for what he did. f.u.c.ker got off lightly.'

It's Kirk who speaks. Of course. Guthrie says nothing, reading it astutely. Kirk looks like he wants wants to be challenged, so that he can further rev up his moral indignation. to be challenged, so that he can further rev up his moral indignation.

With Guthrie not biting, Kirk directs his stare at Blake, all but demanding a response. Blake just nods.

'Look, I'm not here to sell you some Jesus Juice on this,' he says. 'I could tell you how forgiveness will help you deal with this in the long run, but n.o.body's ready to hear that, not at this stage. We've all seen those front pages and we've all used those words: evil, beast, monster. But those words don't tell us anything. What Robert did was monstrous, n.o.body could ever deny that.'

'Here come the trendy excuses,' Kirk mutters.

'There's an important difference between excusing and comprehending, Kirk,' Heather intervenes. 'You say it's no excuse, that's your right, but Robert's upbringing is an inextricable part of what happened. This was someone who had known nothing but violence since he was brought into the world.'

'Evil breeds evil,' says Kane. Pain multiplies.

'I prefer to think of evil as simply an absence of good,' offers Blake. 'Like darkness is an absence of light. As I'm sure Adnan could tell us, darkness is the more prevalent state of the universe. Chaos is the natural state. Second law of thermodynamics: entropy always increases. Order always decays. All nature is war, Darwin said. The natural state of the universe is for things to consume other things, and not just biological life. Stars devour other stars, galaxies devour other galaxies. Good is us rising above natural savagery, and in doing so we burn like stars, illuminating the dark. But we can only burn for a finite time, so we have to burn as brightly as we can.'

'Robert will go to h.e.l.l, though, won't he, Father?' asks Bernadette, seeming to need a.s.surance in the face of all this moral equivalency.

'b.l.o.o.d.y right,' bl.u.s.ters Julie, proving the power of religion to bring people together: acid-dripping b.i.t.c.h-queen and G.o.d-bothering dweeb united in their desire to mete out eternal suffering. 'And Satan doesn't give time off for good behaviour.'