As Nils and Felix ambled side-by-side down the steady cobbled decline, the chilled afternoon breeze sat in their lungs like mint on their tongues. Their wooden-heeled shoes clapped against the stones underfoot like distant gunshots in the morning fog. Felix shuddered in the cold and let his breath ring out into the stony air where it sat like blood in water. He raised his hands, palms down, to feel the air, then muttered, “Like a slow trap of steel”.

Natalya knelt just inside the mouth of the cave, fussing with a piece of chalk. Her calloused hands made slow, sure arcs, carving a circle on the ground. She was a Lorne-viola, which was a nice way of saying she occasionally stuck out; violet skin, onyx hair still up in the large Velcro rollers, eyes like smouldering coals. She still needed to do her makeup. She wore a turquoise jumpsuit that left her back and arms bare. She’d left the house in a rush, half-preparing for a party, half-preparing for a hunt; the work-life balance was still being figured out. She opened the hatch of the little carrier by her side and pulled out a small white rabbit, holding him at eye level. He busily munched away on a piece of lettuce, surveying her with calm disdain. “This is kidnapping, this is,” he said after a while, which Natalya wasn’t quite sure how to engage with.

The sky’s full of thunder. The drum-roll to a day of hard truths. I need to stay positive: keep bleak thoughts out of my head, stay off whisky as long as I can. Keep busy. I mustn’t sit still. Distraction, Philippa always said, can be a great help. Thank God Grandad wouldn’t fork out for a dishwasher. I’m trying not to think about him. I see him in his blue chair, sagging to the right. But this time he’s lifeless, his false teeth bulging, a broken-down doll lying at the dump.