But when the wizard dies the spell is broken. You see that while you refused to dwell in the past, the past has never stopped dwelling in you. You are bursting with it, can’t get near the golden future without leaking history all over it.

NIC

NIC

Nic wakes and knows she is in hospital. Her mouth and throat are dry but other than that nothing hurts, which is a good sign. Also, though, she can’t seem to sit up, which is not so good.

‘Good morning, Nic!’ A man’s voice, young and cheerful. ‘What a delight to finally see those pretty eyes of yours.’

‘I fell.’ The voice coming from her but not hers.

‘That’s what they tell me. Never mind. We’ll have you patched up in no time. Now I’m going to lift the top of your bed a touch and then we’ll see if we can’t get you a nice cool drink while we wait for the doctor.’

She begins to move upwards and for a terrible second thinks she’ll throw up, but then the motion stops and she is looking at the back of a small, dark-haired man murmuring into a blue wall phone. ‘Righto.’ He turns and smiles. He’s older than you’d think from his voice, maybe even as old as her. It’s mesmerising how easily he moves: gliding out the door and back in holding a white plastic cup, and across to her bed where he helps her sip it while chatting about the spooky bushfire sky and how many extra admissions they’re having down in A&E due to smoke inhalation.

‘Pharmacy downstairs sold a month’s worth of face masks in one day. They won’t help much—wrong kind for smoke particles—but people like to feel they’re doing something rather than nothing, don’t they? Now, as for you, gorgeous, a doc’ll be up to chat with you soon, and tomorrow or the next day you’ll have a visit with the social worker. But the absolute priority visitor is the lovely Miss Lena. I’m going to give her a call right now, if that’s okay with you?’

‘Lena knows I’m here?’

‘Lena has been living here, watching over you.’

‘How long have I been … ?’

‘Three nights, I believe. And though you probably don’t remember it, you’ve been working very hard the whole time. You are a healing machine, Nic.’

Do machines usually feel this tired? she wants to ask, but she can’t muster the energy. She hopes the nurse knows to wake her again when Lena comes.

She wakes to someone taking blood from her arm.

She wakes to someone telling her to swallow a pill with water.

She wakes and drinks some tea and a nurse tells her things she should probably care about but can’t.