Seven
The following morning, Herbert was first into the kitchen. He looked outside the back door, where low, drifting monotonous dark clouds passed along without break or thought. He spotted his dowsing rods discarded across the courtyard and Basil dashed through the open door, sending them clattering on his way to the back garden. Herbert followed him out in his blemished dressing gown and collected the rods, wondering what day of the week it might be and feeling that the landscape was faltering from its mantle of summer. He looked at the old knitting needles and would have ordinarily settled into a few minutes of dowsing, but today he took them back inside, left them be on the kitchen table and went for the coffee pot.
By 10 a.m. he thought everything about the morning was slow, restra
