1 
Bill stood in a puddle. His eyelashes swept low, fluttering as he dreamed …
A young girl was crouched in the corner of a shadowed space. Wisps of icy hair floated above her shoulders, and fading bruises coloured the backs of both hands, one of which rested at an odd angle.
Angry voices could be heard somewhere out of sight.
‘How could you have kept this from me?’ said a man’s voice.
‘I did not wish to speak of it!’ a woman answered. ‘If people heard … if they knew …’ Her words were like the hissing and spitting of an angry cat. ‘I couldn’t face it. It felt like – like confirmation!’
‘Of what?’
‘That we are … that she is our punishment.’
‘That was confirmed the day she was born,’ said the man. ‘Nothing for a decade and then this, a girl … That twisted creature is our curse. At least now she can be useful. We can put her to work.’
Inside the room, the girl’s shoulders shook.
Bill’s eyes opened. He considered his drowned feet and wondered how he had come to be there. All water was laced with memory. It tended to bring about funny dreams, which was just one of several reasons Bill didn’t usually have snoozes in puddles.
He felt a scratching from his head. A downy ghostfinch was perched between his horns.
‘Did you make me sleepwalk?’ he said.
The bird didn’t appear to respond. Instead, it pecked a fat green leafmite out of Bill’s hair and swallowed it in one gulp.
Bill strained his mind, trying to remember the dream. He’d seen that girl again, the girl with the floating hair. The birds kept reminding him. He was sure he knew more – sometimes she was older – but he couldn’t keep it straight.
Bill had never had so many memories about one person before. He wondered if it had something to do with his location. He had been living high up in the hollow of a tree on the edge of the River Hook for the past two seasons. He had picked the spot very carefully: it was safe, out of sight, with a perfect view of the duck hatch. He was waiting for someone. He still had her hair in a bag. He couldn’t remember her name, or where she had gone, but he could remember her. She had said she would return, and Bill had been waiting ever since.