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F or half a bar, the music and dancing continued out of simple momentum.

A pause. Then a voice: ‘Someone find the trip!’

The room was eerie with emergency lighting. People shifted, a child started to cry. Phone screens flared round the room.

Another voice: ’The trip hasn’t gone! It’s a power cut!’

Children whimpered, adults shushed. Outside moonlight slanted across the dark grass.

Inside, people huddled and shifted, dull-green by the exit signs, near invisible further within the hall.

Figures could be made out weaving and threading their way between the unmoving dancers.

As soon as they’d passed, the dancers unfroze and groped for friends and families, whispering as if the darkness was listening.

Rose saw someone silhouetted in the moonlit doorway. They called into the hall: ‘All the street lights are out too!’

‘They’ll be back on in a minute,’ someone else argued, but their voice wavered.

‘Come on!’ called Patrick. ‘Who needs electricity when we’ve got the moon? Let’s dance outside instead?’ He trickled his fingers across the bodhran. No one responded. More muttering.

The dancers crowded at the door and spilled outside.

All this in seconds.

Rose clambered down from the stage and went into a monochrome world. The forest loomed black on the ebony mountain, the buildings along the street were charcoal grey and blind. In moonlight, people walked like wraiths, the shapes of their faces forced into sharp relief as phones lit up.

Murmurs and calls: ‘There’s no power at home either.’

‘Even the hotel can’t get its generator going.’

The air was no longer warm; the sweat chilled on Rose’s skin. Above them, the moon was low and among thin streaks of cloud, stars throbbed .

The stars throbbed and the throbbing filled her ears.

Or was it the stars?

Spinning to catch the sound, Rose felt a rhythm building. It was the glen, the mountain, the town, the road, everything was vibrating. The land pulsated.

Fear sucked at the air. People were trying to start their cars but as engine after engine died, some of them muttered, panicky, scooping up children and running for home instead.

Others argued, cursed, but any raised voice was hushed.

Huddling teenagers lurked uncertain. One jostled the others, giggling, and the others pushed him away, swearing.

I need to call home. Rose’s heart thudded. Her phone was inside. She felt the presence of someone beside her but instead of Rob it was Iseult, outlined in silver.

Iseult stood quite calm, sipping from a glass of wine. A slight smile sparkled and her eyebrows were raised. ‘This is fun isn’t it?’ she said.

Ears aching from the pulsating land, Rose crept past her into the hall.

She tried to remember the route to where she’d left her things.

After the brightness of the moon, the emergency lights were too dim to see by and chair leg caught her foot.

She stumbled, knocking against a table. A glass smashed on the floor and its shards crunched under her feet. She groped towards the stage.

‘Your fault!’ hissed someone in her ear.

Rose half-turned and walked into someone else.

‘You need to be more careful, Rose Henderson,’ growled Emmeline. ‘This place is watching you.’

‘Rose?’

Rose had reached the edge of the stage and Rob’s voice was above her.

‘Yes, hang on. I’m coming up.’

She felt her way along to the side where steps led up, crawling on her hands and feet in the darkness. A sudden light blinded her.

‘Sorry,’ said Craig. ‘I found a torch. Come on up lass. You’re safer inside, I reckon. People are getting a bit…”

An engine fired again, this time it caught. The driver revved. Another started. The low sound of grumbling was replaced by cars pulling off.

In the torchlight, with fumbling hands, Rose packed up her cello and felt round for her bag. She could have sworn she’d left it behind the amp. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen her scarf .

Outside, the sounds of people had receded and the low throb of the land drifted in through the door. Somewhere in the depths of the wood, a wolf howled and then another.

‘I can’t find my phone,’ said Rose, her stomach was clenched and nauseous. ‘I need to call home.’

‘Here,’ said Rob, handing over his. ‘I’ll keep looking, you can use mine.’

Rose dialled Simon. There was no answer. Knowing him, his phone was out of charge. She didn’t know Andrew’s number off by heart. She’d left them alone. Simon, Sky and Andrew were at the mercy of the darkness. ‘I can’t get through. What if Simon’s…Rob, can I borrow your car?’

Torchlight swung across the stage spotlighting her bag which was caught up in the curtains, unzipped, the phone gone.

‘Listen Rob,’ said Patrick. ‘Just get the lass home. If she’s worried about her brother, best get her back to put her mind at rest. Me and Craig’ll finish up here and get the gear up to yours tomorrow.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Sure we’re sure.’

‘Thanks,’ Rob answered. ‘Come on Rose.’

The crowd outside had dispersed. A few shadowy figures huddled round a wheelchair.

Elsewhere, cigarette ends studded the night.

The only car remaining directly outside the hall was Rob’s.

With every calm movement he made to start the ignition, release the handbrake and pull away, Rose’s hands clenched harder.

She kept her face forward. I shouldn’t have left them.

The town was still in darkness. Here and there, a hint of candlelight could be discerned, green emergency lighting glowed in commercial buildings.

In shadowed pavements, figures moved at speed or huddled in conversation.

Only the hotel was lit but the generator couldn’t be operating at full power since the lights were dim and sickly.

The moon had dropped behind the mountain and beyond town the darkness closed in.

Rob sped up. His hand hovered for a moment after he’d changed gear, as if he was thinking of putting it on Rose’s clenched fist.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘you must think I’m mad…’

‘I know what it feels like to need to get somewhere and not know why.’

The countryside rushed past. The headlights’ beam made a river ahead of them, casting the verges into sharper contrast. Threads of mist drifted, shrubs and signs appeared animated .

‘Where’s the mist come from?’

With the window down, Rose could still hear the throb of the land and the howls of the wolves. It was closer, as if they were congregating nearby.

‘Something’s got the wind up them too,’ said Rob.

The shadows of the land changed from soft edged to regular, the bungalows were in sight.

Rob’s was in darkness but in Rose’s a dot of phone-screen light moved erratically.

It paused in the kitchen and then pointed towards them.

Out of the corner of her eye, Rose saw movement. Someone was walking into their path.

‘Watch out!’

Rob slammed on the brakes. With a thud, a figure fell forward onto the bonnet and then slipped off.

Rose waited for the thump of a body under wheels but there was nothing.

Her throat constricted with nausea. Seconds crawled like eternity.

Then she fumbled with her seat-belt and got out, her legs shaking.

Rob came round, searching the road with a torch.

There was no body. No one under the car, or in the beam of the headlights.

There was a speck of blood on the windscreen and nothing else.

‘They couldn’t have just got up and walked off, surely?’ Rose said.

‘Hang on,’ said Rob, his voice was shaking. He lay on the road and reached under the car and pulled something out.

It was a crow. It was panting, there was blood on its wing and one of its legs seemed bent.

‘But I could have sworn…’

Andrew’s voice called out of the darkness. ‘Are you OK?’

‘But I thought…’

Rob stood up. The crow struggled in his trembling hands.

‘I’ll find somewhere to keep it safe tonight and take it to the wildlife rescue place tomorrow,’ he said.

His voice was calmer now. ‘It’s funny how your eyes play tricks on you in the dark.

I honestly thought it was something bigger.

Look, there’s a cardboard box in the boot, can you get it for me? ’

Rob laid the crow inside the box and closed it.

He handed it to Rose, and after checking round and under the car again, drove them the last few metres into his drive.

The bird scrabbled and fidgeted, unbalancing the box in Rose’s hands.

They got out and Rob retrieved her cello from the boot and exchanged it for the box.

Andrew called again. ’Rose, are you OK?’

She turned to Rob. ‘I’m sorry I…’

‘Stop being sorry. Go and check on Simon. I’ll take this suicidal insomniac crow and settle it somewhere safe. It’s been one weird night. Do you want me to walk you over?’

‘No. It’ll be all right but… come over after you’ve got the bird sorted will you?’

‘Yeah sure. Go on, away with you. Take the torch.’

Rose called towards her bungalow. ‘Is Simon OK? Are you and Sky OK?’

‘Of course. Why wouldn’t we be? Simon’s … er … on the mend.’

On impulse Rose put the cello down to hug Rob despite the box. ‘Thank you.’ The dread was still filling her and the throbbing of the land pulsated through her feet and filled her ears. ‘Does this sort of thing often happen?’

‘Tonight isn’t normal. It’s something else.’ The box rattled.

‘Can you feel the vibration all around?’

Rob breathed out. ‘Yes, I thought it was just me.’

‘No. I can barely hear for it. Please come over. Have a drink - we could do with something calming.’

‘I will in a minute. But I need to protect this crow from itself. Don’t suppose you have a cage handy?’

Rose tensed then forced herself to relax. ‘No.’

She walked back across the road and Rob made to follow. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?’