Down here, the water comes up onto the sand in waves, pushed by the wind. There’s a lot of crap strewn about. Bits of plastic, bits of metal, bits of wood, dog poo, a sanitary pad, a nappy, a few bones. I inhale; the air smells of doughnuts—there’s a stall nearby. Then I exhale, pushing as much of my breath out as possible, emptying myself of what makes me human. I crouch down over the duck. I take my hand out of my pocket, and place it on the duck’s body. Still warm. My god. A string of dribble just slips out of my mouth. I can’t help it.

The man is still watching. Now, he has a concerned expression on his face. My mind is mostly blank. I blink up at him, and then down at the duck. Then, I pull on the duck’s neck, and lift it off the sand.

The duck is much longer than I had anticipated. I hold it just under its head. Its legs swing. It’s heavy. I walk back up the steps with it. The wind pushes my hair back off my face now. I walk up onto the embankment. I feel good. My lips are wet. I’m starving.

“Hey,” I say to the man as I walk past him.

I’m certain that as I do—as I swing the duck by my side, as my hair is whipped up and back again by the wind, as I step on the ground beside him—he nearly falls over.

I turn heads all the way back to the studio. Back inside, I wash the duck’s body under the tap. It’s small, only maybe half a meal, but then I bite into its neck and drink. Still fresh. Still warm. I look up into the mirror as I do. God, I’m so beautiful, I think to myself.

Later, I go upstairs, following the sounds of people laughing, having slept after draining the whole duck. I’ve changed my clothes. I’m wearing one of the shirts I got the other day and the shorts for boys, plus boots. I feel quite good in my body. The memory of Gideon is far back in my mind; my skin feels not like my skin—the skin that has the memory of being groped on the stairs, and of being watched from the shadows—but like something from which feathers could easily sprout, that repels water and that is a beautiful pure white, just the kind of white my mum always wanted for her own skin when she painted her face with makeup. I find myself at The Place, the communal area of the studios, where there’s a long dining table with benches on either side, strings of fairy lights above, and lots of plants and flowers everywhere, and beanbags and other soft things on the floor.