She did remember the stories, but did he want her to apply them to her life? She had never been good at school, she had told him that, yet he still went on teaching. ‘What was I meant to learn?’ The ground was welcoming, cradling her back.

The bird made sounds that irritated her ears.

She laughed. ‘Is that all? I know I’m human.’

Again, being told what to do. Be responsible. Be mature. Total uninhibited freedom is not for you.

‘Go away,’ she shouted.

‘Stand up.’

‘No.’

‘Stand up.’ He was flying all around her now, zooming in close as if he would swipe her cheeks with his wings, peck out her eyes.

‘I’m not scared of you.’

‘Listen.’

‘No.’ Enough with the patronising. Enough with the holding back.

He said, ‘There are consequences to everything you do. A price to pay. Go against what is right and here of all places you will find the tangible consequences. They will not be postponed. Get up.’

‘No, and you can’t make me.’

His sadness was palpable, it descended upon her like a shroud. She would live the consequence of her disobedience, be punished.

A hollowing was taking place underneath her. Gentle, nothing to be frightened of. This was her fate, even if misgivings shrouded it. This was the inevitable consequence of who she was, the sum of her actions, the manifestation of her intentions. She submitted to it.

It was not a grave. One is placed in a grave, wedged in with care by the living, those who are still in the queue waiting their turn. She was not dead, and it was the earth that wanted her, a place of incubation, temporary and necessary. Her metamorphosis was painful. Limbs stretched and contorted, skin scorched and punctured, her hair not her hair, her fingers not her fingers. Her mouth felt tight, her tongue started to swell. It pushed between her lips and the fatness of it was new and uncomfortable. And it was not only her mouth, every part of her was in pain. The combined physical sufferings of woman­hood: the cramps and torn hymens, the invasion and press of pregnancy, bruised pelvic floor and cracked nipples, even the aches of beautification, the sting of waxing, the pierce of earlobes. She could not trace how it all had started. The day she acknowledged that beauty was a burden, her femininity overpowering her soul, the day she admitted that she did not want to be human any more. Because a tree always had a home. A fox did not need to be told how to find food. A bird did not need clothes.