Dark field, dark road,
the night sky clouded over.
It felt rude to listen, even to the cadence of his words.
I shut the window. Boiled.
Feverish sleep
and in The Big House, there were bodies,
blood, and in my hand there was a knife. My name twin
strolled in through the front door uninvited, shook her head,
What have you done now? She said.
I pushed her to the floor, knelt over her and closed my
hands around her throat, squeezed
hard as I could
but she was unaffected, laughing coldly,
and when I looked again it was my
double – lifeless, freckled, stiff.
Next morning I walked over to the studio
late – exhausted, brain full of the awful things that people
do.
Just as I was emerging from the woods,
I stopped –
paused behind a tree.
Martin Cooper.
Waiting by the studio door, something
behind his back.
His face looked focused and intense.
I watched him waiting,
my heartbeat thick and slow.
I saw the chairman of The Trust
appear across the river, look over at the studio window,
shake his head, walk on.
I waited.
Eventually Martin Cooper huffed, bent down,
placed something on the ground next to the door. And
walked off quickly.
I snuck over. Full of dread.
I really thought, Ava, that there was going to be a knife, a
note in blood, a death threat lying there.
It was a pine cone carved from wood.
The B&B was hot again. Some problem with the
system, the owner messaged me – there would be a man
