At the far north of the island is a Neolithic village. Her internet searches have told her it is five thousand years old. As she climbs out of the car, the clouds are feathered overhead. She can smell the sea. The track towards the village is studded with stones, each one marking an event: a man on the moon, the French Revolution, the fall of Rome, leading all the way back to when the village was built, at the same time as the pyramids of Egypt. The gift shop is stocked with Viking hats, the kind made from hard plastic with two braids of synthetic hair hanging down on either side, with Fair Isle sweaters and stuffed puffin toys.

A pleasant man behind the desk in the gift shop sells Hannah a ticket, and tells her she must watch a short film first before visiting the site, which she duly does, sitting behind an older couple in matching rain gear. She is then funneled through a small exhibition, each one of whose cases she reads diligently, learning about the food the villagers would have eaten (fish and deer and berries), the pots they made, the strange, lovely balls they carved; and it is not without interest, this exhibition, if you are a schoolchild, or a historian. Or someone with nothing better to do. Outside the museum is a replica house—she ducks inside, sees two beds, a dresser made from stones, a stone-bordered hearth.

When she comes out and goes to explore the village proper, it starts to rain again. She walks around the houses, peering down into their interiors, and they are impressive, moving even, and yes, it is easy to imagine these people going about their lives, inhabiting their houses, with their beds for children and their beds for adults, and their stone dressers, as though from an episode of The Flintstones, carving their jewelry, eating their trout and deer and berries, and loving and fighting and fucking around the hearth. She turns away from the houses and looks out at the sea, a wide, gently shelving bay along which the rain is coming in hard now. She feels a fresh wave of anger and pain. What is she doing here? What was she thinking, coming to the edge of things, to stare at hearths and homes and places where families lived and loved, and only feel more of what she does not, will not have?

She wanted something wild, something that exists only unto itself—nature without audience. Must everything be made human-size? She does not want the domestic. The domestic is what she came here to escape.

THE SUPERMARKET IS the size of a large aircraft hangar, and she is grateful it exists. She wanders the aisles, letting the supermarket’s white noise wash over her. She buys a bottle of Rioja and some cheese crackers and chips.