I settled the new chicks—no worse for the adventure with the truck—under the hanging bulb, then lingered by the door of the garage and sorted the mail, waiting for my mood to settle, and Mr Alleman to lose interest and go indoors. A bill. A flyer for events at the cultural centre: a bush-dance, an introduction to computers, a water-dowsing workshop, a movie to be shown on the last Saturday, and an historical lecture on the eradication of invasive plants. That should be of interest to Mr Alleman—we didn’t approve of his garden. Letters to my mother from her travelling friends in scripts looped, elegant and feminine on flower-scented paper—I breathed it in, forcing myself to relax. The stamps read Åland, Ísland, Magyarország. Tiny bright worlds, smaller than Runagate, places where plants froze in the snow and died in the autumn. A catalogue of pretty throw-rugs and framed sayings, which we would look through after dinner. And a grubby little envelope, not stamped or postmarked, not even addressed except for one word: TINK.

You are truthful, Bettina, aren’t you? I didn’t answer, even to myself. That paper, that writing—filthy and bold and untidy—offended my already-ruffled spirit, and stirred it up like dirt at the bottom of a water tank. All my worst impulses.

This—whatever it was—was mine. I put it into the pocket of my skirt and stood in the garage, feeling my unsteady heart, and the paper resting guilty as fire against my leg. Mr Alleman had gone. My mother’s advice would have guided me, but she was asleep, and for a moment the idea of rebelling against my own better judgement tasted as good as salt.

I scrubbed the fence, the sun hot through my blouse, the breeze pressing the fabric against my shoulder blades. But I could not enjoy that secret glory of movement and effort. My peace was twitched by my conscience, by the worry Mr Alleman was watching behind his curtains, or my mother behind hers, by the growing suspicion this was not, in fact, the first letter I had received and therefore neither special nor deserving of secrecy. Hadn’t there been a letter once, ages ago, that my mother had read by the window, laughing softly to herself? The memory was sluggish, cobwebbed with disuse. It had been foolishness, my mother had said. Nothing to bother our heads about, Bettina, is it?

“Bettina Scott,” said a voice behind me, angry and light, but a man’s. I spun, spiralling dirty water. It spattered the driver’s door of Gary Damson’s truck, where the letters spelling DAMSON FENCING were peeling to reveal only their own deeper shadows. I was indecorously, bitterly, delighted. It was his own fault. He had startled me twice today.