The introductory essay explains that the title is based on the Mao Zedong quote: Women hold up half the sky.

I’d read in the paper that morning how many calls the police hotline had received about Yin’s disappearance—apparently hundreds of calls from people all over, and not just about Yin but about dozens of other missing women too. Shouldn’t we be doing more to find them? Caring more that they’ve disappeared?

I know the longer Yin’s gone, the more we should worry for her, but I’ve noticed that the pure fear of the first weeks has melted away. The more time that passes, the easier it becomes to forget.

If women hold up half the sky, then why are we so disposable?

DAY 53

I’ve lost count of how many hours I’ve stared at my photo. I have it clipped to the easel, set up near the window, where the light is strongest. It’s still a shock to see something I created blown up so big. Even the mere size of it makes it seem more like proper art.

Natalia sprawls on the mottled concrete, red feathers sprinkled around her body, looking like a littered petal or a lost princess, or a dreaming virgin or a bad girl getting what she deserves. All of these contradictory things that somehow get heaped on young women.

The print turned out shadowier than I expected, but the colours are everything I wanted, even though I’d originally wanted a subject with dark hair.

A bird walks across the corrugated tin roof overhead, its spindly feet amplified into sharp clangs. I pick up my brush.

After practising on countless throwaway photos, I’ve finally plucked up the courage to paint the real thing. I’ve coloured Natalia’s cheeks and given her exposed limbs the barest hint of pale blue. So far, no mistakes. I can’t afford to get another print, so whatever happens, I’m stuck with it.

My phone rattles on the card table but I ignore it. Natalia has already messaged me a billion times since the shoot, demanding to see updates.

My next step will be to create a rainbow aura around the ceiling and edges of the picture, as if something otherworldly might be at play.

I walk back to the reference pics I have taped to the shed walls, looking closely at my eighteenth-century geisha, the photo that gave me the idea to hand colour my image.

Underneath her heavy costume and makeup the girl is probably very young. I imagine letting her hair down, wiping her face, putting her in a Balmoral uniform instead.

Who arranged for this photo to be taken? Was it her family, or her employer, or a tourist? Did she want to pose, or was it for someone else? Does it make a difference?