The sound of the rain on the roof was more muted when Clare awoke, as if the droplets were smaller and the wind chasing them, calmer. It was the kind of pitter-patter, white noise that, in other circumstances, might’ve enticed her to burrow back under the covers and snooze a while longer. Instead, she glanced at the bed on the far side of the cabin. Faye lay motionless, facing the wall.

A pair of Cape robin-chats with their distinctive orange breasts and grey bellies hopped about on the lawn. The larger of the two stopped when he spotted Clare open the door. He sized her up with eyes shining brightly in the black band that ran, Zorro-like, from his beak to the side of his head. As she stepped onto the grass, the bird emitted a shrill call and the pair flew away.

The water was boiling when Clare saw Faye walking towards the lapa. Although she wore her jacket, her head was bare. Clare realised that, while the clouds remained dark and low, the rain had stopped.

“Morning,” said Faye. She held up her palms. “Yay. But I’m not sure it’s going to stay away for long. Shall we nip down to the stream to see how full it is?”

They carried their coffee with them, treading carefully over the rivulets that ran down the slope in braids and spinning eddies. The earth was dense and sticky beneath their boots and, as they reached the edge of the yard, Clare saw the orange-grey robin-chats flit from the trees. They alighted on the lawn where a pair of hadedas, dull grey but for the occasional glossy bronze glint of their wings where the light touched them, were already determinedly pecking for worms in the sodden soil in their percussion-like way.

The water swirled fast and turbid a few centimetres below the bridge, burying all but the largest boulders and giving off a muddy, mineral scent. Faye looked upriver and then down.

“No longer a stream, that’s for sure,” she said.

“Is it much higher than yesterday?”

“Absolutely. And to think there was barely enough water here for me and Bev to dab ourselves with when we arrived.”

They watched quietly for a moment. Clare swept a bushel of reeds that had been washed onto the bridge into the water with her boot.

“What do you think it means for the other rivers?” she asked.

Faye shrugged. “Probably that they’re impassable. It’s possible that bridges have been flooded, damaged.”

“So, impossible for the rangers to reach us?”

“Perhaps. It’s hard to be sure without knowing the route they’d take by car. And how the rivers lead into one another.”

“Bloukrans being the largest, right?”

“I think so.”

Clare glanced at Faye, thinking she might have more to say but she remained still as she looked beyond the bridge to where the path led up and around the hill.