Maud’s eyes remind her of the teddy bear she had as a child. Lizzie wonders how many mites live in the dog’s long black eyelashes, remembers the delighted squeals of disgust when she taught her class that in a science lesson – how we are slowly being eaten alive by infinitesimal insects gorging on our skin. How they spend their whole lives travelling the planet of our face, mating on our nose, laying eggs in our eyebrows, dying on our lips. How they love the dark and secret places, the moist holes and hidden folds. The children scrubbed at their eyes with tiny fists, their faces screwed up in appalled disbelief. She had them then, in the palm of her hand. You could have two thousand follicle mites eating the dead skin around your eyelashes and you’d feel nothing. Lizzie quite likes the idea of oblivion, leaving things to Fate, although she doesn’t trust Fate any more than she trusts dogs.

She walks up the steep path to the Beacon, with Maud pulling on her lead. Lizzie checks that she has the sausages in her pocket, then finally lets the dog off. ‘Come back when I tell you,’ she commands, trying and failing to channel Barbara Woodhouse.

The Beacon is too vast, too open for Lizzie. A constant wind blows off the tile-grey sea, forcing her coat open and her scarf to flap, as if it’s trying to shake secrets out of her. She doesn’t like the tiny paths winding here and there, leading nowhere. No exit routes. The long, brittle grass whispers about her as she walks past. The trees, bent and weathered with age, stretch out long spindly fingers that reach for her bobble hat. They want to snare her in their arms, imprison her. There are dips and holes disguised by moss and bracken. The Beacon is dangerous, nowhere to hide. These are stupid thoughts, paranoid, paranormal. Not like Lizzie at all.

Maud sprints in circles, yapping with joy at being free. Lizzie feels she should do the same but can’t. Maud simply lets herself go. Her back legs flail as she runs. Her gait is lopsided, and there is a bulge at the end of her back. There is no dignity in her, yet she doesn’t care. Lizzie holds herself like a pack of cards, close to her own chest.

She tracks Maud along the Beacon, distracted now and then by the glittering sea laid out in front of her. If she were in teacher mode, she’d describe it as terribly exciting. Terribly. It scares her. She’s not been down to the beach yet. It’s too overwhelming. If the sea is too bright, Lizzie is too faded. A sepia version of herself. Even after a month, the bags remain under her eyes. The cuts have healed, and her shoulder doesn’t hurt any more, but she’s careful with it. As she’s careful with everything.