It’s freezing out here, she thinks, as she rests on her hands and knees and hangs her head. The rain is falling through the blackness like a hail of arrows, piercing her hair and clothes.

Something catches her on the cheek. It’s the hem of a woollen coat—Diana is standing beside her.

“Better?”

Stella nods, takes the proffered hand and clambers to her feet. Her teeth are chattering, but she does feel better and eager to make up for her lapse.

“Cory’s father,” she says, peering in what she thinks is the direction of the sea. “It was a sailing accident, wasn’t it?”

The silence stretches uneasily and Diana concludes it with a noncommittal noise that makes no sense; a “humph” that resembles a laugh.

Stella wipes her sleeve across her sticky mouth and wonders how to change the subject.

“Shall we get back in the car?”

But Diana has taken her by the arm and they’re walking off in a different direction. Stella is too woozy to protest. When she looks back she sees that the car headlights are still on, and bright rods of rain are falling through the beams.

“People like that have it coming,” says Diana.

“People like . . . ?”

“People like him. People who think they’re entitled to hurt my boy.”

They are wading through shrubby grasses and heathers and gorse, and Stella wishes her ankles weren’t bare. The wind whips her hair across her face and makes her jacket fly out behind her. As they walk the boom of the sea becomes louder and she tries to wriggle free, but Diana keeps tight hold of her arm.

They stop. Stones loosen under Stella’s feet and tumble into the darkness.

“There,” says Diana. “That’s where they found him—down there.”

Stella shivers. Diana is gripping her arm with both hands, and it’s starting to hurt.

“You ripped Cory’s picture to pieces,” she’s saying loudly, over the wind. “Hundreds of tiny little pieces.”

Stella wishes she understood where Diana is going with this. She doesn’t like it. She wants to be back in the car.

“Who do you suppose is going to mend it?” Diana asks.

“I’m afraid it’s beyond mending.” Stella tries and fails for a humorous tone. Everything in front of her face is blacker than black, and she’s losing her bearings. She’s locked in the attic again, but the walls are crumpling and the floorboards are giving way under her feet.

“I am,” Diana says. “I am the one who will gather the pieces together, bit by painstaking bit, and fit them back together.”