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real than she was. It would have been better not even to have glimpsed it, but their paths had crossed. It had trampled on her life, had sucked out her marrow, without noticing who or what she was. She would go and face it. What else was there, she asked herself, and answered herself, nothing.
    So she made her way back, sitting alone in the train as the fields streaked past, drowsing through a century-long night under the cabbage-rose quilt in the B&B. This time she went in the old way, from the house, through the garden-gate; she found the old trail quickly, her sharp eye picked up the trace of its detritus, and soon enough she was back in the clearing, where her cairn of tiny bones by the tree-trunk was undisturbed. She gave a little sigh, dropped to her knees, and then sat with her back to the rotting wood and silently called the Thing. Almost immediately she sensed its perturbation, saw the trouble in the branches, heard the lumbering, smelled its ancient smell. It was a greyish, unremarkable day. She closed her eyes briefly as the noise and movement grew stronger. When it came, she would look it in the face, she would see what it was. She clasped her hands loosely in her lap. Her nerves relaxed. Her blood slowed. She was ready.
    PRIMROSE WAS in the shopping mall, putting out her circle of rainbow-coloured plastic chairs. She creaked as she bent over them. It was pouring with rain outside, but the mall was enclosed like a crystal palace in a casing of glass. The floor under the rainbow chairs was gleaming dappled marble. They were in front of a dimpling fountain, with lights shining up through the greenish water, making golden rings round the polished pebbles and wishing-coins that lay there. The little children collected round her: their mothers kissed them good-bye, told them to be good and quiet and listen to the nice lady. They had little transparent plastic cups of shining orange juice, and each had a biscuit in silver foil. They were all colours—black skin, brown skin, pink skin, freckled skin, pink jacket, yellow jacket, purple hood, scarlet hood. Some grinned and some whimpered, some wriggled, some were still. Primrose sat on the edge of the fountain. She had decided what to do. She smiled her best, most comfortable smile, and adjusted her golden locks. Listen to me, she told them, and I’ll tell you something amazing, a story that’s never been told before.
    There were once two little girls who saw, or believed they saw, a thing in a forest . . .

Body Art

    THERE WAS CUSTOMARY BANTER in the Gynae Ward at St. Pantaleon’s, about the race to bear the Christmas Day baby. Damian Becket, making his round after a sleepless night of blood and danger, didn’t join in. His newest patient was at the furthest end of the cavernous ward, in the curtained-off section reserved for those who had lost, or might lose, their babies, and those whose babies were damaged or threatened. Dr. Becket frowned a little as he strode between the beds, not quite hearing the mewing and gulping of the infants or the greetings of the women. He was frowning, partly because his patient’s new baby, a scrap of skin and bone in an incubator in Intensive Care, was not doing well. He was also frowning because he was so tired that he couldn’t remember his patient’s name. He did not like to admit a fault. The baby should be doing better. His brain should respond to his need to identify people.
    He did not notice the stepladder until he had almost crashed into it. It was very tall, made of very shiny aluminium, and was directly under a circular fluorescent light fitting. He stopped suddenly, didn’t swear, felt sick because his reactions were slow, and stared upwards into the light, which blinded him. At the top of the ladder, perched precariously on tiptoe, was a figure in what seemed to be a haze of pale filmy garments. Its head was a ball of shiny white spikes. Dr. Becket said that the ladder was dangerous, and should be got out of the way.