36

“No, Evie. That wasn’t what happened.” Abbie spoke firmly. “Nick has an alibi for that night. We know for sure that he wasn’t the one who attacked you.” There was a long pause. “I’m afraid we still can’t trust your memories. Not about any of it.” She paused. “Now I need you to listen to me just for a moment. You know, don’t you, that for the past month, we’ve had as many officers as possible involved in the search for Angel? But now . . .”

Jack couldn’t sit still and listen to this. He got up and walked over to the window.

“You can’t stop. You can’t. Oh God, Abbie . . . Don’t do this. . . .”

Jack folded his arms, dreading what he sensed was coming. The truth was, he didn’t share Abbie’s uncertainty. Okay, so the evidence was lacking. It wasn’t conclusive. All that meant was that they had to keep looking until they found it.

“You lost a baby, Evie. You were a teenager looking after Leah Danning when she disappeared. That on its own was a major trauma. Then you were attacked. There’s no question about it—and we’re continuing to investigate that. But it’s looking more and more likely that your head injury has affected your memory in a way that your past is confused with the present.”

“But you’re wrong!” Evie was outraged. “What about Angel? Where does she fit into this?”

Abbie sighed. “The truth? It’s possible that in your mind Angel’s the baby you lost, Evie. The baby you miscarried. You were six months pregnant when it happened. You would have had dreams about her growing up, about the future. It was another traumatic loss for you, especially after what happened to Leah. Losing her was like losing the future you’d pinned all your hopes on. It would be understandable if all this time, you’ve kept her alive in your head.”

“No.” It came out a whisper.

Jack frowned. He hadn’t been as involved with this case as Abbie had, but even so, he knew that the mind could play the cruelest tricks. After Josh died, he was sure he’d seen him, several times. Abbie could be right. Angel could be the baby Evie lost years ago. Then he found himself doubting it again. If it was true, how could Evie’s emotions still be so raw? But it was possible, too, that the fear and the trauma had brought them back.

“I want to see Charlotte,” Evie said suddenly.

“She’s at home, as far as I know. When did you last hear from her?”

“A couple of days ago.”

Jack made a mental note to call Charlotte Harrison. It was clear Evie needed a friend, now more than ever.

* * *

“That was necessary,” Abbie said briefly as they walked down the path toward Jack’s car.

He didn’t reply.

“I can’t help thinking,” Abbie went on, “that in some way, the attack is linked to Leah’s disappearance. Did Evie see something that day? Or during the days before? Something her mind has blocked out, because she was too traumatized. When she moved back here, she could have lived in this cottage for months without anyone seeing her. But what if, one day, completely by chance, her path crossed with whoever abducted Leah?”

Jack frowned. It sounded too far-fetched, but anything was possible. “There’s no proof.”

“Right now there’s no proof of anything. I think the intention was to kill her,” Abbie said quietly. “On that particular path through the maize field at that time of year, no one was likely to find her for some time.... The attacker took everything that might have identified Evie, covering their tracks, knowing that because of the way she lived, no one was likely to report her missing.”

“And knowing that within a couple of weeks, the maize field would be harvested and the evidence destroyed.” Jack was thoughtful. “You think someone was watching her?”

Abbie nodded. “It’s likely. I think they came to her house and somehow lured her outside. Maybe Tamsyn saw what happened, and that’s why she had to die. Whoever did this hasn’t left anything to chance.” She frowned. “What I’m not sure about is how Angel fits in—assuming she exists. Was she the reason for the attack?”

“Whoever took her must have carried her some way.”

“It’s occurred to me, too. We just don’t know. There’s so much we don’t know,” Abbie said quietly.

Jack glanced toward the house. From an upstairs window, he could see Evie watching them.

“This time last year, I found a dog.” The image was imprinted on Jack’s mind. “A black-and-white dog. Its throat had been cut, and its eyes gouged out. It was in a shallow grave covered in leaves and twigs. It was my dog that found it.” Beamer had barked persistently until Jack had gone to see what the noise was about. “Okay, so it was a dog. But what kind of person does that? I’m mentioning it only because Evie’s cat’s gone missing. It’s probably nothing.” But he wasn’t sure.

He shivered. The temperature had dropped while he’d been talking.

“We need to handle Evie carefully.” Abbie spoke quietly.

“I know.” Jack completely agreed. She was already torturing herself. She was fragile. It wouldn’t take much to tip her over the edge. There was something else he’d been meaning to ask the DC.

“Did Miller ever mention what happened that night in the woods?”

Abbie stared at him. “The night you saw the lights? No.” She was silent. “He definitely didn’t.”

“Don’t you think that’s odd?”

Abbie frowned. “Yes. Very.” She looked at Jack. “Especially as he was on duty and you weren’t.” She looked puzzled. “Have you read about Xander Pascoe? He was interviewed when Leah Danning went missing, but there was no proof he had anything to do with it. On the day Leah disappeared, he had alibis that put him nowhere near the scene of the crime. Alibis that some people believed were false . . .”

Jack nodded. “His father was convicted of murder. He’s still inside.” And his mother, Janna Pascoe, was tough as old boots.

* * *

For the next couple of days, Jack was buried in paperwork, breaking the monotony by venturing out to walk Beamer, so he heard via the grapevine how over the following week, the searches were cut back, then withdrawn completely. When he called Abbie, she sounded regretful, guilty, sad.

He made a point of calling round to see Evie and found the house locked up and the curtains drawn. Eventually, he saw her face at an upstairs window, and he waved at her. When she came down and opened the back door, he was shocked. The little strength he’d observed coming back to her seemed to have ebbed away.

“I came to see how you were.”

Evie shrugged. “They’ve stopped the search.” She always said “they,” as though she didn’t associate Jack with the police. “They think I’m confused and inconsistent.”

“The investigation is still open,” Jack told her. “You mustn’t give up.” For a moment, he wondered if he saw a spark of something, but then she turned blank eyes toward him.

“Maybe they’re right. My mind is shot to pieces. Maybe I just made everything up.”

But Jack knew she hadn’t. However unlikely it was, however lacking the evidence, he’d seen the strength of her emotions. It had reminded him of Louise when Josh died. It had been real. The police had done everything by the book, and the investigation had been fruitless and inconclusive. But the fact remained, as far as they were concerned, without paperwork or forensic evidence, there was no child.

“I have an appointment with a counselor who specializes in memory disorders. There’s a card somewhere.” She glanced behind her, into the kitchen. “Abbie did say to call her if I found anything new, anything conclusive. So I looked, Jack. And I did find something, something everyone else missed.”

He stared at her.

“A picture.” Her eyes filled with tears as she whispered it. “It’s a picture Angel drew for me. It had slipped behind the fridge. It must have got caught in the back of it somehow. It’s the first actual proof. . . .”

“Did you tell Abbie?”

She nodded. “It’s just a child’s drawing, done with colored pencils, of a person with a triangular body and stick legs, with a round yellow sun in the top left corner. Do you know what she said?” She paused. “She said, ‘It’s not enough, Evie. I know what my boss will say, that anyone could have drawn it.’ ” Evie was sobbing, back on the knife-edge. “God, what will it take? Her body?”

He knew the turmoil she was feeling, her need for some kind of closure. When you can’t rely on your own mind, you’re fragile, and each day is uncertain. That was how Evie’s life was right now, all the time. Anything she remembered was potentially no more than a dream.

Her body was shaking with her sobs as she grieved for the baby who had died before Evie could give birth to her. The baby her body had failed to sustain. Her memories of a pink-cheeked child, alive and smiling, were no more than wish fulfillment. Images that had comforted a mind that had suffered too much.

The trouble was, Jack was thinking, he knew how grief could take you over. The counselor had explained it to him after Josh died. It could delete the most painful times, the heartbreak, eventually leaving you memories to hold forever, to embellish, to alter, painted crystal clear on your mind.

He knew that had happened to Evie, but he also believed in the intensity of her pain. This was a recent loss, one that time had not yet softened. He was sure of it.

“Listen. Never mind what they’ve said to you. You have to trust your gut, Evie. If you know you have a child, you can’t give up. So you didn’t register her birth. Do you know how often that happens? Maybe she was born here in Cornwall. We don’t actually know, and we haven’t yet been able to check all the hospital records in London. But this isn’t about the police. It’s about someone very clever who’s made them think you’ve lost your mind. You can’t let them get away with it.” Jack paused. This wasn’t professional, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t here on police business. He was here as a friend.

He watched for some response from her, but Evie had frozen. Then she looked at him. Jack couldn’t stop himself. He stepped forward and put his arms round her.

 

 

CASEY

 

 

2004 . . .

 

The world’s an accessible place. A career, fame, happiness, dangled like the proverbial carrot. There for the taking. As if we’re all born equal, each of us with a right to the best there is in life. Another lie. We’re not all born the same.

Even without Charley, I was going to travel. After that, I wasn’t sure where I was going, but that would wait. First, I knew I wanted money. If a career and happiness came with it, I wouldn’t turn it away, but money was the clincher. Without it, you weren’t going anywhere.

Natural talent can take you far, on the stage or in politics, for example, but thanks to my parents, I’d stumbled across my own niche market for making money. And it was easy.

You have to find your own way, and I’d found mine. I became this person who, if you looked closely, resembled me in height and eye color and the shape of my nose, but who, for as long as it took, wasn’t me. Who wore a bold-print dress cinched at the waist and tight black boots. Whose dewy skin wasn’t natural but was squeezed out of a tube and applied with a soft brush, whose eyes were wide between her eyelash extensions. Her hair was her best feature, I always thought—long and thick, a glossy black. Did you know that money makes your hair shine?

Her lips were painted to match the red oblique stripes on her dress, and she wore a gaze that lingered that extra second, a smile that showed even white teeth. A smile that, once she was in her car, dropped its brightness as she drove the seven miles. I always took the same route, imagining who I was going to be, half anticipating, half not wanting to arrive. Sometimes I pretended I was Charley. Someone I hated, who’d hate what I was going to do.

The man paid me mostly just to peel off my clothes while he sat in the corner of the room and watched me. Pervy bastard, I thought the first time. A bigger fool than most of them, paying me just to watch. That was all he wanted, to start with.

Being paid for a man to look at you was no big deal. It was what we’d agreed. That was why the first touch broke the rules, electric-shocked me. The next just sparked. After all, his eyes knew every inch of my body. Was touching so different? And it was worth more. I didn’t even have to ask. There was more money in the envelope he gave me that time. And the time after.

Only a matter of time before he wanted sex. Thanks to Anthony, then Alistair, I didn’t feel. It was a good lesson—learning to switch feelings off—one everyone should learn. And I had a good body, which I was prepared to use to my advantage. At least I had something to show for letting him have me, not like the indiscriminate couplings among other people I knew. The drunk one-night stands, which were so pointless. Or the affairs my father had, which had upset my mother and driven my family apart. This affected no one. And it was no one’s business. Sex was always a transaction, all the more satisfying for money, instead of gratification or love.

Eventually, I found my own kind of love, if you could call it that. One that temporarily assuaged the emptiness. Not the gentle, bland couplings that held some people together, woven into their lives alongside their meaningless jobs and crippling mortgages. That wasn’t for me. With that kind of love came pain; I’d found that out the hard way. Love—with its meaningless words and eloquent declarations so fervently, too easily spoken one moment, only to be withdrawn the next—was for other people.

You couldn’t trust it. And what I sought was more carnal, brutal even. It left me with the same feeling I used to get when I cut myself. I wasn’t alone. There were plenty of men who wanted the same.

While it lasted—in a hotel room or somewhere less private—it added to the thrill, I’d found. I could forget the hurt, the betrayal, the loneliness, lose myself in the brutality of the act. It had to be brutal. Then, after, there’d be no sentimentality or exchange of numbers that would later be forgotten. We existed in the moment. Then we were gone.

 

 

2005 . . .

 

People were all the same. All using me, drawing me into ever more complicated games, wringing out of me every last drop of my blood, sapping me. Leaving me with the same emptiness.

It didn’t matter that I tried. Take Ed, for example. Hadn’t I done everything for him? I’d turned his characterless flat into a cozy home. Cooked him proper meals. Made him cut his hair, too, getting rid of those curls I hated. Short, straight hair looked so much better on a man. Yes. I was good for Ed. It was because of me that he got the promotion he wanted. I’d coached him, pushed him way further than he’d ever been able to push himself. But that was what it was about, wasn’t it? Knowing what was best for someone? Even if they swore at you or called you a nagging cunt.

He’d known I was right. He’d thanked me, too, with that diamond ring, which I’d been so touched by, the same one that, when I came to sell it, turned out to be a cheap fake.

That had hurt, then angered me. It had shown me how little he thought of me, how I wasn’t worth more than that, how stupid he thought I was. I wasn’t, though. I’d proved, too, that he needed me. I was an integral part of what he’d become. Just as I’d built him up, I could as easily bring him down.

It hadn’t taken much. So many people are vindictive, I discovered. Only too willing to bad-mouth their so-called friends, always ready to believe the worst of someone. Everyone’s looking for a fall guy. Too bad it had happened to be Ed’s turn.

I’d almost finished with him, dismantling his life piece by piece. I’d begun with his home, giving his landlord notice, forging his signature, just as I’d forged it on a check made out to myself. His status had been next: a few carefully worded social media posts, untimely gossip to the right people. I’d watched his friendships start to crumble. Then I’d moved on to his career. I’d listened enough to him to know which people would make the difference between repute and contempt, success and failure. It had taken only a few well-timed words, and I’d felt a savage pleasure in his downfall. But by then the darkness had caught up to me.

* * *

So many times I’d questioned why. Why, just as I was rebuilding myself, finding strength in being alone, did I meet someone who loved me for what I was? Hadn’t I learned enough from all those past hardships—those broken hearts, the betrayals, all those fuckups—not to trust?

I didn’t meet him like I met the others—during a clandestine rendezvous, arranged solely for sex, in some cheap hotel room or other. Never at someone’s home, since just as questions were never asked, no picture could be drawn of the other’s life.

From the start, it was different with him, uncontrived, our meeting sheer coincidence: my missed train and his canceled appointment. I sat drinking my latte, aware of the irritation that festered inside me at having to wait, my eyes flitting, uninterested, my thoughts elsewhere.

I saw him come in, instantly pigeonholed him into the category of arrogant and smug, like my father, who didn’t know what it was to struggle. It was in his unlined face, the expensive shirt, the way he spoke into his cell. But there was warmth in his eyes as he listened, smiled. He seemed happy in his own skin. It never ceased to amaze me how people could be like that, living charmed lives that had effortlessly fallen into place. They weren’t my kind of people, though. Not people like him, which was why the flash of jealousy I felt shocked me.

I watched him at the counter, talking to a friend, noted how his easy confidence merged with unself-consciousness, and caught his eye as he happened to glance my way. The two of them carried on talking, while I concocted their life stories. They were old friends, probably from their school days, who both worked in the city and who caught up now and then. When his friend left, after a few minutes, he made his way over to where I was sitting.

Had he felt it, too?

I agreed to another latte, but already, in a few words, a meeting of eyes, it was much more than that. There was an inevitability, a sense that our meeting was more than just chance. I wasn’t looking that late September afternoon. But fate had intervened when I found him.

From the start, he was different. The first time, in the dark quiet of the hotel room he’d booked, it was there. I felt it in my bones, the rawness of connection to him, a need for his body against mine that was so much more than sexual. I hadn’t known sex could be like that. It had always been about control and pushing boundaries, doing whatever it took to break into the numbness that surrounded me, even briefly, so that I could feel. But not like this—not joining myself to another soul.

Somewhere deep in my dark, twisted heart, I’d discovered an ache, a craving for more. I tried to stifle it, because it frightened me. I didn’t want to feel like this. When you hooked up with someone for no-strings sex, you existed in the bubble of the moment. Love wasn’t part of the deal. But this was different.

That moment, that incredible moment I’d never forget, when he held my face in his hands, the intensity of his eyes burning into mine, as he told me he’d fallen in love with me. I didn’t know what to say, just had a miraculous sense, for the first time, of coming home.

My cynical self stepped in at that point, stopped me from making a complete fool of myself. I knew, didn’t I, that love was for other people—those who were older, the successful, those with normal expectations of life, those who wanted children, who had an ability to feel? When I was so fucked up, it was ridiculous to imagine anyone would love me. But eventually, I let my guard go down, felt love wash over all the years of abuse I’d subjected myself to, soothing the chaos in my mind. Discovering that euphoria didn’t last, but it gave way to a new pain, the kind that came from being apart.

We didn’t talk about other people, other lovers. It had always been one of my rules. In my world, you met for uninhibited sex for a couple of hours, usually in the afternoon, then went back to your separate lives. I didn’t know what to do with being in love.

It was his idea for me to move in. I’d thought about it, wondered if he’d ask, waited for it to come from him, and when it did, I let surprise spread across my face, then delight. Relief, too, that I’d read him right. That for once, thank God, I hadn’t been wrong.

“It makes sense, you moving in here,” he said softly, stroking a wisp of hair out of my eyes, peeling off my T-shirt, then unfastening the zipper on my shorts.

He was right. He had a narrow, terraced house, while my place was small and shared with a roommate, Robin, who got snide on the rare occasions I had guys over. I’d tried not to let it get to me. Robin was jealous, but girls often were, I found. Of how I looked, that I was always meeting different men. Even when I was moving out, she was a bitch.

I’d tried really hard to make things right. “You must come over and see our place! Maybe we can double-date.... It’ll be fun!”

But her eyes narrowed. “You really are nuts, aren’t you?”

I shook my head and looked at her, puzzled. “I don’t know why you’re being like this. We’re friends.”

She flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Yeah. Right.” She stared at me. “Friends. Such good friends, you take my clothes. And trash them. And don’t tell me.”

I colored. “I borrowed them. But you said I could. And your clothes are so much nicer than mine. If I’ve upset you, let me pay you.” I fetched my wallet, pulled out a wad of notes.

“If it had just been the clothes.” Her voice was level as she pushed the money away. “But you didn’t know where to stop, did you? My clothes first . . . then my flat, my friends, my family, just about my entire life, Casey . . .”

“That’s not true.” My wounded cry was genuine. Her family and friends had made me welcome. “I thought we were friends. I thought your friends liked me.”

But Robin shook her head. “Christ. You’re good.”

I looked at her, bewildered, as she went on.

“You really think some of your latest boyfriend’s money will fix it and we can all pretend everything’s fine.”

I felt myself tense. I hated confrontation. What was the point? It was far better to resolve things amicably. “I’m sorry,” I said, avoiding her gaze. “I really didn’t mean to upset you.”

She ran her hands through her hair. “Casey. I don’t get you. It’s the coming in at all hours, the drinking, the drugs . . . then acting as if you’ve done nothing wrong.”

“But I’m not doing drugs,” I protested hotly. “Okay, maybe now and then, but I’m not now, I swear.”

“It’s not just that.” She paused. “You think I don’t know what you do when you go out? It’s not my business, but people talk, Casey. Everyone says you’re fucking a different guy every night.”

“I’m not. . . .” She was right. It was none of her business, but it was so unfair. I’d changed. I was telling the truth. “I might have been, but now, I swear, I’m not.”

“Whatever.” She sounded disgusted.

I could feel my cheeks flame. “If I were you, I’d feel the same. I’m really sorry. You should have said. I was on the rebound. It was just a thing I did for a while, but not anymore.”

She was silent.

“I’m not like you,” I said. “I’m not good on my own. And it didn’t mean anything. It was just sex. There’s nothing wrong with that. They all knew.”

“Except Liam.” Robin’s voice was dangerously quiet. “He was in love with you, Casey. You really screwed him up.”

“Liam was so damn needy, it was ridiculous.” It was out before I could stop myself. I hadn’t known about the ex-wife who made his every day a misery or the depression that plagued him. “That’s hardly my fault, is it?”

Robin’s expression was disbelieving. “What about compassion, Casey? Caring for other people? Caring what happens to them?”

“You’re a fine one to talk,” I said, my temper flaring. “You don’t give a shit about me. Not really. You never did. I was just a convenient lodger who paid you rent.”

Robin whistled. “Jesus. This is pointless. And to think, for a while, you almost convinced me.”

I watched her get up and walk across the room to the window. Silent, she gazed out of the window, her back to me.

“Look.” Robin turned round. “We both know how it was. And it doesn’t matter. You’re moving out. It’s for the best.” She hesitated. “Just . . .”

“What?” I was impatient.

Robin folded her arms. “He’s a good guy, Casey. Be nice to him. Don’t mess this up.”

“Oh, I get it.” I stood there, anger burning inside me. “This isn’t about me. It’s about him, isn’t it? You’re jealous. You always have been, because guys like me. Loosen up, Robin. Have some fun—before it’s too late.”

I’d wanted to leave as friends, but I couldn’t help that she felt this way.

Robin’s face turned white. “Just get the fuck out.”

* * *

Losing Robin hadn’t mattered to me. I was with someone who loved me, who knew how spiteful Robin had been, but who understood. He’d had friends who’d turned on him, too, but we had each other now. He appreciated me, lavished gifts on me.

When I found out I was pregnant, I was shocked. It was one of those freak cases. I’d always been careful; I was on the pill. The idea of motherhood had never entered my head before. If it had been someone else it had happened to, I’d have laughed in their face. It was a risk, wasn’t it? If you had sex, it was always there. Nothing was 100 percent reliable.

People weren’t, either. The fucked-up left a trail of carnage, I discovered. He loved me, but he was weak. I left it a couple of weeks before telling him, wanting to hold the knowledge tight to myself. To imagine a whole new world of possibilities, such as being part of a family that would be nothing like the one I’d grown up in. Life experience did that to you. You could choose not to repeat the pain, the dysfunction, and instead to build a loving, nurturing home for a child to grow up in. Already I could see it—the carefully decorated bedroom, the family meals, the home that would always be a safe place, no matter what.

He didn’t want a child, he told me. Not with me . . . But I didn’t find that out until later. I hoped that because he loved me, love would change his mind. It didn’t, of course. Since when had I got so stupid? So romantically naive, when everyone knew men were weak? They said all the right things but didn’t have the balls to see them through.

In the end, he didn’t need to worry. After ten weeks, I felt the familiar hot stickiness between my legs. My losing the baby solved all his problems. That was when I felt it come back. The emptiness. Dissatisfaction. The deep, rotting hole inside my heart.

It was followed by the darkness. I hadn’t meant to slip back into my old ways. I told myself that just once was forgivable. Twice, even. Anyway, it was his fault he caught me. He’d lied to me about going away to meet a client. My heart almost stopped when I heard his key in the door. Fortunately, we were still dressed. I fabricated a story about how Oliver was a distant cousin who’d just happened to call me earlier that day.

But he didn’t hold out a friendly hand. Nor did he smile. He didn’t say anything to either of us, not till later, when Oliver had gone. He didn’t ask if it had happened before. It was worse than that. His look of hurt. The tears, which, in the reflection of car lights from outside, for a moment turned to blood.

“We need to talk.”

He took my hand and led me over to the sofa. There was sorrow in his eyes—such lovely, kind eyes—as he told me how he couldn’t go on like this. Numbness descended on me, masking my pain. His words, bloody words, washed over me, leaving me untouched, as I forced a few of my own selfish tears.

This wasn’t my plan. I didn’t understand why he was being like this. Everyone knew happiness didn’t last.

“I can’t live like this,” he told me.

I reached forward to touch him, but he pulled away, as if I’d shocked him.

“I know he’s not the first. How could you? How could you?” His voice rose.

I flinched. It was so unfair. Only then I worked it out, how Robin must have warned him. He should have told me. Given me the chance to explain that Oliver, the other guys, they meant nothing. It was just sex.

He was just like the rest, I thought, feeling the shutters come down. I didn’t have to explain myself to anyone. If that was how he felt, I was done.

* * *

You don’t need to look for proof to see life for what it really is. To feel the hurt and grief, the bitterness. The bleakness and hopelessness, which never leave.

All those stories about love, about sharing your heart, about the magic of connecting with someone . . . I found out the hard way, that was all they were. Fairy tales waiting to be shattered, when you gave your heart and it wasn’t enough.

I wasn’t enough. But I’d always known that, even as a child. Not bright enough, pretty enough, smart enough. I’d simply forgotten. Nothing had changed. It was hardly surprising that he didn’t want me enough.

I didn’t matter. But ultimately, we all mean nothing. Our self-important lives have no significance, not really. In a thousand years, will anyone care? We’re born; we live; we die. Our lives are a succession of eye blinks on the timeline of a small planet, so at the end of time, the human race will have been meaningless. A cosmic joke, no more than specks of stardust striving for survival, for greatness.

Greatness . . . What does it even mean? Is greatness measurable? Is it innovation, fame, your name written in history books? Or is there greatness in the man who saves the life of a small bird?

Everyone forgets, we’re small, so small that one day nature and the elements will reclaim their planet, rid it of its human blight, wipe away every last trace of us. Restore balance. Have you thought about how a single tree benefits the planet more than a person?

People don’t think about how nature’s power is greater, how it is everywhere, in the height of the trees, the phases of the moon. In the weather, in a dull drizzle from saturated clouds, dampening scents and blurring the edges of footprints. In the seeds sown into plowed fields, onto crumbly red soil, where they need light, warmth, water. In the passing of time, before they’re ready for harvest.

Timing is everything. But you can’t leave things too long, because it comes to all of us. When we least expect it, stealing out of the darkness. In our world of opportunity, death is our greatest certainty.