scratcigue irritated my eyes. My mind , and noo go to sleep.

    as my mind playing tricks on me? It seemed t I could une. ell, une. Just five lost notes. I opened to be sure. Yes. tely sound coming from the garden.

    ords I can understand. Give me a torn or damaged fragment of text and I can divine   must come after. Or if not, I can at least reduce ties to t likely option. But music is not my language. ere tes e opening of a lullaby? Or t? It o say. ito frame tever it  bound togetime t note struck up its call, t of anxiety ed to find out ill ted off, lost for good, bloion, only t sooner or later t linked t of notes  tune , empty fragment tered to t leaves from a er tree.

    Stubbornly mute es came to me out of no in my  ting time. Or else in bed, drifting betinct, meaningless song to me.

    But noe first, its companions dro rapped at t old myself, and prepared to go back to sleep. But torm, tes raised ter.

    t  only to picture t percussion , random squalls er coming doters and into drains. Drip… drip… drip. ater falling from leaves to t, bet, if I  mad or dreaming, came tes. La la la la la.

    I pulled on boots and a coat and  outside into the blackness.

    I could not see my  of my face. Noto  ts on t a trace of it. A  an instrument, but an atonal, discordant human voice.

    Slo stops I tracked tes. I  dourned into t least I t is ook my  soil  beside ted, but in a patc caug my clotrying to  es like Ariane’s to recognize. It sounded at irregular intervals, and eacime I , until topped me and I paused, ing for a neer it in t a quarter of an  at t time I found myself back at t the house. I had come—or been led—full circle.

    tes arted again.

    Instead of going in, I sat on ted my ap on my back, my neck, my hair.

    It began to seem a fooliso  ter sometantial, and I managed to persuade myself, almost, t I  tion of my oion. ts turned in otions. I  about Angelfield and fro, and t made me t, tograpaken of  in a blur of ion to telep day, but it ion; no one can o a decision made in t.

    And t me an alarm.

    A presence.  my side.

    I jerked up and looked around.

    total. to see. Everyt oak, o t c.

    Not Miss inter. Not  at time of night.

    then who?

    I felt it before I felt it. touc my side—the here and gone again—

    It , Shadow.

    Again  my ribs, and a meoardily, to announce  my roked  attempted to find a r purred.

    ‘You’re all ,“ I told ’s no nigo be out.

    o my room, licked ooget ’s protection—my dreams kept well away.

    t day er my regular intervieook myself for a ried in t of early afternoon to retrace taken by dead of nigo t after t I lost my track. My memory of stepping across t  soil of a floinely raked and in order. Still, I made a feook myself on a rouge t mig not  at least, my nigime stroll.

    I sa of t t t I came across Maurice, and for once o me. ion of craigting rig me come onto turned back to his work.

    I returned to transcribing terview.