Category: ‘Ornithology’ (a beginning)
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Chapter 7|Seven across
| Back to Chapter 6 | Back to the beginning It’s starting to get dark. The sun is just setting behind the straggly line of houses on the edge of town. A wonder of nature unfolds above them as a vast murmuration of starlings begins to swoop and swirl, moving as one in a mesmerising… Read more
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Chapter 6|The top floor
| Back to Chapter 5 | Back to the beginning Walking from the station towards the small business park on the edge of town, Kate and Jude try to reassure each other that everything will be fine, despite both being convinced that something terrible has happened. They comment on the cold, dry spell of weather,… Read more
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Chapter 5|Freyja’s journal
| Back to Chapter 4 | Back to the beginning Wednesday The ornithologist was outside the flat again this morning, with his binoculars round his neck. He gives me the creeps. Luckily he was gone before I went to work, but I could still taste him in the air outside. I wish I didn’t have… Read more
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Chapter 4|The bridge
| Back to Chapter 3 | Back to the beginning Kate leans over the parapet, fearful of what grisly sight will confront her. A broken body with limbs contorted at unnatural angles and blood pooling out onto the ballast? Or the smouldering, charred remains of a person swinging silently from the overhead lines? Craning her… Read more
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Chapter 3|Jude
| Back to Chapter 2 | Back to the beginning There is a bus stop a short way down the hill from the bookshop, and Jude joins the gaggle of passengers in the so-called shelter. (When it rains here, it usually rains sideways, and the shelter was clearly designed by someone who was only familiar… Read more
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Chapter 2|Kate
| Not read Chapter 1 yet? The beginning is a very good place to start. Kate is a single mum, though she’s not too keen on having that pointed out by others. She’s certainly done the whole parenting thing all by herself, but the label ‘single parent’ has a stigma attached. If this is the… Read more
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Chapter 1|Freyja
It’s eight o’ clock on Thursday morning – a cold, nondescript November sort of morning – and Freyja drags herself out of bed. The alarm clock first broke her slumber half an hour earlier, but Freyja has little enthusiasm for the day ahead. She would much rather slip back under the covers and back into… Read more