Lucy was staring at me with a mix of fear and suspicion, and I noticed that the boys were doing exactly the same. I lowered myself down onto a pew, looking at my right arm to see the bulging tendons pulsing with nectar. It had swollen so much that it could have belonged to a skinned gorilla. The itch from the bite was spreading down through my chest and my stomach, even as far as my right leg, but I didn’t dare peek beneath my clothes to see what was happening. Zee came and sat next to me, his head in his hands. It took me a moment to notice he was crying. ‘It’s never going to end, is it?’ he said, wiping his face with his sleeve. I slung my good arm over his shoulders, feeling them heave. Before I knew it I had tears of my own, Zee’s frustration and fury contagious. He lashed out at the pew in front, his bony fists not budging it. ‘It’s never going to end. Not now.’ I wanted to reassure him, calm him, but what could I say?
