‘I apologise,’ he says. ‘That chaffinch’s call reminded me of something. Of bells, perhaps. My master, de Fonteroy, wears them on his horse so all can hear his approach, and how we all rejoice when he comes, but perhaps it is something else I am reminded of. What was the question?’

This man, William finally realises, is not infected, he is drunk. ‘Has this town been stricken?’ he says again.

‘With the sickness, you mean?’

Ambrosio begins waving his arms again, biting his lip and humming.

‘Answer, man, by God,’ Harold says.

There is no breeze any more. Saint John hears its absence. Mary’s moaning is a low hum, a deeper layer, below life somehow. She is like an enormous bee, somehow, or perhaps she is a quaking of the earth. Saint John can feel her vibrant, energetic pain coming through the humming in the earth, rising up through his boots. It makes him tremble. I am blind, Saint John yells, but no words issue from his lips; everything is dark to him.

‘The sickness is, of course, here,’ Ambrosio says, smiling. ‘The sickness is everywhere.’

A fly, curious …

A fly, curious and unsure in its movements, crawls along Raghnailt’s face, awakening her, and she is full of fear. She does not remember falling asleep, but where did all this fear come from? It is like an animal in my chest, moving about within me, she thinks, exploring my every vein and organ, taking me over until there is nothing between me and it. Since the sickness closed them off in their houses, all there is left is sleep; it comes and goes at its wont, and even it has become tainted and infected with fear.

The fly on her cheek happens across a viscous fluid and begins feeding on it. She slaps it away; misses it; feels her cheeks with her hands.

‘Alannah,’ she says. ‘I have been crying in my sleep.’

This fear is general, total. Perhaps only parts of it are personal to her; the rest is a communal fear, belonging to everyone, and cannot be stopped. It is the natural state of the world.

She wishes she could wander outside and look up at the trees, any tree; not with her eyes, but with the eyes of the child she once was. Then she could truly see it; notice its different layers, imagine all the universes within it, see its leaves breathing and swelling in the wind, hear its rustling, feel its strength beside her; but this curfew keeps her in this room.