What she remembers:

1. Waking as she is lifted in her bed, gently, off the floor.
2. Counting the time in wallpaper repeats: “Robin, blackbird, wren; robin…
3. Falling in her old cedar bed back on to the floor.
4. Her eyes holding her breath: she won’t blink.

Hanging on.

“Robin…

The house is quiet but outside the tree is waving, tapping.

The tree is one of the reasons she bought the house. No other neighbours.

The tree is legend, stories attach to its branches. Its hollow was sanctuary; its bark made the barren bloom. A hanging tree, the surveyor said, sourly.

Through spring and summer, the canopy reaches right up to her porch, draws over her walls and greens her light. It is almost like living in a wood. Birds sing from the hollow.

Downstairs, she drinks tea and water. The kitchen tap is working today— it makes a change.

Leaking pipes, airlocks, plumbers’ dockets—she knows better. Like her, the tree is thirsty; long ago it sucked the front wall loose and toothy. Now it has reached the house: ground floors burst, tiles cracked, her own skin flaking.

“Blackbird

She grabs a torch, marches down the path.

The rounded hollow is shoulder high. A high stink, muffled. She has never ventured her head inside. The torch finds twists of wood and shit, petrified as if a fire had once been set. Too damp now. Woody stalactites they are—one has the profile of a bird. Extraordinary. Another resembles a flower or no a cake, rectangular, iced; or, a bed, her bed, even down to the scrolling, the pillow. Don’t blink.

“Wren.