The atmosphere brought her near to him now. She used to call these fogs “river sprites.” He remembered the whiteouts, descending very suddenly at day’s end when he was younger. It could occur in minutes, sometimes, at either end of the cricket season. The fog would fall so fast that the batsman might quite suddenly see the ball appearing out of the mist as if by magic. Those days ended early, with a more prolonged session than usual at the local pub—appropriately called The Cricketers—as it was almost impossible to drive far until the fog had lifted. His mates usually stayed to dinner, and his mother spread sleeping bags around in the attic.

His mind crashed back to reality with the roar of a car engine accelerating onto the bridge just behind him, and a flash of lights. Something seemed to tear the handlebars from his grasp. The bike veered sharply to the left, driving its front wheel into the iron railing along the bridgehead that he’d known was coming. With a nauseating wrench, the fairing around Will’s knees broke and he was thrown over the handlebars, goring his leg badly as he cleared the barrier rail headfirst, and then falling the fifteen feet or so into the River Test below. Despite the searing pain in his leg, he was relaxed as he fell, worrying more about the Ducati than his own injuries. The sun through the fog cast astonishing shards of prismatic light through his mind, as he tumbled seemingly endlessly. Some idiot had overtaken him on the bridge. Didn’t see him, probably. He certainly hadn’t seen or heard anyone.