Language is how we create the reality we live in. What we label a chore feels burdensome. Tom called me an arsehole so many times that, in his presence, that was all I could be. Words are spells we are casting. Bless you. Damn you. We should be more careful. The language is full of clues to its own power. Even the Bible is explicit on this; the creative power of language. In the beginning was the word.

Then there are the long walks with Achilles that he, too, once considered a chore. Now he welcomes the quiet hour that reconnects him with the forest. Since his experience of singularity, he knows himself as a locus of consciousness moving through, touched and caressed by, the vast web of energy that makes up the solid trunks of trees, the shush of the leaves, the flit of birds, the warmth and light of the sun, the scent of wild garlic. The knowledge of that connection is his anchor; he walks with a different awareness, knowing that what he touches, touches him back. The routes are recognizable now, every tree as distinctive as a human relative, and he no longer fears being lost. He walks through the forest with confidence, Achilles joined to him by an invisible lead, while his phone vibrates a lonely dance across the kitchen table. Under the canopy of new leaves, his breath falls into the beat of his steps. His mind slips out of its harness and his body carries on without him, whether for minutes or miles. Only when he is required to talk does he seem to fall back into himself.

And such a moment is here, on the path just in front of him.

An older woman in a brown dirndl skirt and a hunting jacket is standing over something, poking it with a long stick. Her black Labrador is sniffing at it. She turns to Logan as he approaches.

What a thing, she says.

He comes closer, until he can see the thing himself: a large bird, most probably a heron, he thinks, and freshly dead. Its neck is at an unnatural angle and there is something lodged in its throat; the head of which is visible just inside the bird’s open beak. A toad?

How do you imagine such a thing happens? the woman asks Logan, as though mistaking him for the local naturalist. Just greed, do you think?

The bird looks like a youngster, he says, falling into the role. Inexperienced, perhaps. Achilles!

The dog flinches and backs off.

Leave it, Lucy, says the woman, and the Labrador turns its curiosity to Achilles and makes a nose-to-tail circle.

What a thing, the woman says again. I suppose you never know what you’ll find when you’re out walking.

I suppose not, he says. He is joining in her game, though he doesn’t know where it’s going.