Chapter Nineteen
AudenIt’s not part of the ritual. It’s not called for or remotely necessary. But since I have another hour or more before the others come down here, I decide to do it. Not for any rite or reason, not for the door. But for me.
I shrug off my shirt, I toe off my trainers, and I run.
My feet dig into the grass—long, ticklish, and cool—and soon I’m moving between the trees, the white trunks of the birches flashing past, leaves whipping, the grass giving way to loamy soil and the occasional fern and the sometimes soft, sometimes scratchy carpet of old leaves and moss.
More acorns have tumbled here, and as I run, I see flashes of movement through the trees, sepia and russet. The deer I’ve been pretending to cull. They’re in season, and they’re bounding all over the woo
