Crossing the hill-crest, she winds down a gentle slope, through naked, crackling poplar and cedar with a swift footfall, abetted by slippery leaf-litter.

Voices muted by the veil of hill and tree unfold into shapes of anger and despond. She can taste the tangle of rust and orange discolorations, yellow and blotty. She could always taste the colours in the whispers and words of others.

Ivory-sweet was her brother and mother.

Brooding honey and coal-dark soft was her father.

Green lemon-grass, crisp thistle was her sister.

She slows her pace and pauses, her arm brushing the curly bark from a cankered birch-twig. Clutching her apple-sweet bundle.