She struggled from the grass and, resting a moment—for the last moment she still thought her life had not changed unutterably—saw a flutter of contempt in his face. He turned, clutching the coat around him, and ran, limping, his legs sinewy white beneath its hem.

Linda leapt up, tangled in the torn remnants of her shirt, and struggled backwards out of it, out of all her clothes, plunging bodily into the night wind that fluttered the hair on her arms and back and ribs. Through the soles of her feet and hands, through her skin, the land sang to her: dark and silver, the bones of the world. She felt the drumming of David Spicer’s bare feet, outdistancing her easily. At the edge of the creek, he stopped. She could not feel what lay beyond those pickets: the house was outside her visible world and Sylvie Spicer, waiting, was only a wavering shade.

“Do you think I don’t remember you?” said David, to Linda, or to what Linda had become. His voice was harsh. He’s old, she thought, and then, He thinks I’m my mother. “You tricked me, but you’ve had your go. You’ve taken my life and all these years. Do you know what it’s like to watch the world turning and passing and never taking you with it? You’ve had your time walking it. Take your own back.”

David stepped down into the crossing, and from the opposite bank a spasm threaded the air, furrowing cold and then heat along her ribs. A bullet, realised Linda, as the sound cracked in her ears. Just like the movies.

She turned and ran, on four unruly legs. Lights on the road. She raced to it, scrabbled belly to the grass beneath the wires, dashed out. The station wagon was high, huge. She could see the long road beneath and beyond it, pale with stars.

“Mr Scott!” she tried to call, once. A billowing of fumes and throbbing on the air, and the car moved to where she stood caught in the beams. It struck her side. Had she not spent her life in traffic, had Darryl Scott accelerated faster, she might have been killed. As she reeled into the trees on the other side of the road, panic began to wash her away. The old earth, the inevitability of blood and fear, the quicksilver heartbeat of the lonely stones rose into her. She ran blindly into the hills.

Chapter 2: These Are Gold

CHAPTER TWO

THESE ARE GOLD