IT was well past the time when Orlanda was supposed to join the WhatsApp group chat. Flourish and Winifred had been sending her messages for over an hour, their phones lighting up with unread notifications and missed calls.

"She still hasn't replied?" Flourish asked, sending another voice note into the chat, though she already knew the answer.

"Nothing," Winifred sighed as she typed in a reply. "It is not like Orlanda to just disappear like this. She promised she would be online tonight."

Flourish, lying on her bed, stared at her phone screen, feeling the same uneasy knot in her stomach that had been growing for the past hour. Orlanda...