This statement encourages a chorus of laughter that Izzy appears immune to as she transcribes a counter-clockwise circle in the air before her face, the fingers of that very hand clutching the carving. Her lips move and begin to mumble so softly that no one in that room will ever hear what it is that the little girl incants.

Cruel, incredulous laughter explodes from the bullies. At least three of them scream, ‘Spaz!’

As if that is a cue, Izzy opens her eyes. With the symbol in her palm, she points up as if to heaven, her little face transformed by beatific wonder. If this is merely a ploy, it is one that she conducts with the silent concentration of a child completely entranced.

In a corner of the room, Izzy’s friend is the only child who angles her face to look to where Izzy points.

The rattle of air moving quickly through the chinks in the old outbuilding coincides with the bustle of suddenly alarmed birds in the rafters. The snap of wings above precedes the scratching of dry feet. And the taunting laughter of the bullies loses some of its power when the room darkens perceptibly, though not dramatically. A cloud may have drifted below the sun.

But when the light diminishes enough to near drown the children in shadow, the commotion of the birds beneath the cement roof ascends to a storm of frantic wings.

The face of Izzy’s friend blanches in alarm and one of the other girls looks up to where Izzy indicates, where so many birds now shriek and thrash. And the girl’s face hitches with concern. Enough to prevent her from speaking or warning the others.

* * *

In her mother’s dream, in that dim, greyish atmosphere, Izzy is dressed in her school uniform. She walks across the vicarage lawn towards the wooded grove. Absolute silence grips the scene until, from the trees, there drifts an ethereal piping she’s heard before in her sleep.

Jess is watching her daughter from behind the murky glass of the French windows, where she sits in a wheelchair wearing her client’s crumpled leisure suit, the velvet worn threadbare. Her attempt to stand up is instinctive but rendered futile by the Velcro straps that restrain her wrists and ankles.

Jess tries to call out to Izzy with all her might but is mute, her open mouth no more than a silent void. Her desperation to call to her daughter only succeeds in reopening her facial scar. Warm blood runs over her chin and floods the gaps where her teeth are missing.