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S ky tumbled over the fence into the edge of the forest and stopped within the shadow of its dark edges. She breathed deep and turned to peer down on the two bungalows, the nearest one where Simon was and the opposite one with the shouting man in.

A light came on in Simon’s place and the shape of David’s woman appeared in the patio doorway. She was looking around, but it would have been impossible for her to see Sky hidden in the twilit pines.

After a while, she went back inside, leaving the door open.

Sky wept. Tears streamed and her nose ran. She had piled the strange clothes at the bottom of the tree nearest to the fence before climbing over. She was so cold, but she cried while she could, before she had to return, before it would be impossible to cry the same way.

She wiped her face with her arm then hugged herself. She yearned for the words to share with the other woman. She had forgotten so much, but she could sense Rose’s grief and Rose’s deceit. It was as if Rose had been soaked in something bitter smelling but had tried to mask it with something sweet.

Strange sounds came from the open door of the bungalow and Sky ceased weeping to listen. The sounds were discordant and yet not unpleasant: a starting and stopping and changing. Then there was a pause and music came.

It swirled up and around, changing tempo and volume. In the music, Sky recognised anger and grief and the motion sickness of loss.

She did not have much longer now. She moved deeper into the trees, her tears drying, the warmth returning to her frame, her thoughts shifting, but there was another pause in the music and then Sky recognised snatches of the tune she had herself had whispered to Simon, merged with an underlying sense of someone else’s confusion and misery.

As she moved away, her mind heard unsung words: why why why.

Then silence.