The countryside suffocated under the heat. A knot of indigo clouds, twisting menacingly in the sky, threatened another downpour. England was a martyr to the summer, steaming under a morning sun like boiled meat. The rain would come soon, quenching the abandoned fields and roads, making everything fresh for the briefest moment and then the simmering would start again. There was nothing to grow in this weather, leaving the countryside more barren than it had ever been in the winter. The small villages making up the quaint south of England had long been abandoned after the worst of the flooding a decade ago. Wide lakes and marshes now stretched across plains of lowlands, the roofs of lost communities poking chimneys out of the reduced water level; monuments to a better time.
Rachel had trave
