A large housefly came to life and rammed the front window. The repeated impact of insect body against glass made Beck wince. The fly seemed to be the cabin’s only other occupant, though there were sure to be spiders lurking in the corners. Flimsy walls and duct-taped screens answered none of Beck’s whispered questions. Signs of the cabin’s other occasional inhabitants were forsaken and dated; a shrivelled tea bag in a tarnished tablespoon beside the sink smelled of mint, his mother’s favourite; on the bricks-and-boards shelf, an Ursula K. LeGuin paperback, spine cracked and cover faded, had evidently been abandoned by his father mid-read.
Beck’s ma and pa rose like monoliths in his mind.
In day-to-day life Beck’s mother, Eurydice de Famosa, was intense but taciturn; her large brown eye
