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S imon lay in the bedroom and half listened to the murmur of voices.

His head throbbed and he felt nauseous. He ought to get up.

His blood felt wrong, his whole metabolism was running at the wrong speed.

The restless urge to move had been overwhelmed by the need for sleep, but that was just concussion. His legs fidgeted under the covers.

‘It must be peaceful being so close to the forest,’ that dreary woman had said.

Her eyes had been tawny, unusual. Next to Rose’s definite colour, she appeared to be in sepia at first. And then you took in her red hair and amber eyes and felt the slow, appraising stare of an animal.

A fox or a wolf or a cat. His head throbbing, he sat up in bed and looked out of the window.

The forest was all he could see from that angle, its dark green pines waving in a light wind.

He thought of Sky, shivering, distant.