She sits in the chair, her hands folded in her lap and her shoulders rounded, as Maren picks up a flat brush and draws it down Aurelia’s crown to the tips of her hair which lie just beneath the strap of her maternity bra. Maren spends a long time brushing like this, smoothing out the kinks and the knots before beginning to divide the hair in three at the crown and braiding it carefully. Aurelia closes her eyes and enjoys the sensation of touch without anything being wanted in return. It’s such an unusual feeling, these days, to be touched without expectation of milk, food, or love. Just to be held, to be cradled and soothed, is a temporary light in all her dark places.

Outside, a storm is breaking, rattling all the doors of Granhus. Rain overwhelms the drainpipes, gushing down the windows in torrents. Tom rushes outside to secure the tarp across Basecamp’s incomplete roof, and even as he trudges through muddy flash floods funnelling down the hill he knows water damage is the least of his worries. The ground has turned to a swamp, right where Basecamp is built. A dramatic zigzag of lightning crackles across the sky, lighting up the trees and sending creatures scurrying for shelter. Tom is drenched to the skin, wind pummelling his ribs. His hands shake as his tries to turn on the torch on his phone to survey Basecamp’s foundations. It is pitch black, but what he sees makes his jaw drop – the river is rising directly beneath the house, bubbling up around the pilings.

He tries to tell himself that it will be fine, the house is on pilings, the river will pour down over the cliff. The storm will pass and they’ll fix the damage. But by morning, Basecamp will be destroyed.

When Aurelia finally falls asleep she plunges into harrowing, vivid scenes that seem more than dreams.

She is standing at the foot of the fjord.

The tide waters are a silver mirror, the sky is overcast. Mists marble and drift over the fjord. She turns and surveys the black cliffs that stretch all the way to the sky. Pretty white flowers are growing out of the cracks, but it’s the stones that interest her enough to bend and collect them in her hands. Velvety, blue stones, the colour of jewels. An amalgam of stone and moss that form a new species of pebble. She drops one into her pocket for Gaia. She’ll love it. Like her mother, she takes pleasure in nature’s gifts. She’ll probably name it and create a special bed for it out of cereal boxes and tissue paper.