I can only put it off so long. I pull on my old trackies, last year’s school jumper and my gum boots. I’m as ready as I can be. I open the back door and step out. Splinter pushes past and bounces through the grass, his tail waving like a tatty flag in the gloom.

My eyes water. The white-suited woman was right. It smells. Still. Focus on what you can do. I can’t stop it smelling. But maybe I can try to make it seem like it doesn’t . . . or, even better, like it’s got a good reason to. A not-worthy-of-attention reason. I don’t look at the grass and thistles growing in front of your shed door. I look at my feet. Focus.

A movement catches my eye, the towel flicking on the clothesline. The same towel you hung. Another thing you left. The shadow-rat turns, eyes sharp as it sinks its teeth into my belly, the burning heat of it pushing me forward. I stalk across the grass, ignoring the squelch of dog shit and the spike of old bones stabbing into boot rubber and yank the towel off the clothesline. It’s stiff and gritty under my fingers. The fibers crack and scratch as I wrestle to fold it. It makes a demented towel-tent in my hands. I try again. I use my leg to push against it, but it stubbornly holds its line-hung shape. I throw it at the back door. It doesn’t even make it halfway before falling stiffly on the grass. Probably in some dog shit.

My hands are on fire. My skin is on fire. The shadow-rat surges up from below, pushing a gasp from my lungs as it forces its way up into my head to stare out my eyes, rabid, furious. This yard, this mess, this house.

You.

A howl surges, belly deep, rip-roaring mad, clawing at my throat as it tears out. Splints stops dead in his tracks. It builds again, another heaving sound-vomit, molten and electric. I plant my feet, suck the gray air into my lungs and let it spew out, my face twisting, my cheeks hurting like sunburn. My throat tears, my head swims, and then it’s over. The silence rushes in and I stand panting in the grass. The shadow-rat falls back into my belly where my insides are raw, torn.

I kick at the fallen towel. The swing of my leg hurts my knee and my boot flies off. It thumps into the back of the house and I fall on my arse in the grass. The only sound now is my breathing and a scrabbling at the side fence. Real rats. I press my palms into my eyes until lights bloom in my head. I sit and push everything in until it’s a little pinprick. Something small enough to swallow and forget.