I watched them after the feast. Some seemed more affected than others but I’d started a fracture amongst my once home and it was growing, spreading, splitting off into a myriad directions.
I’ve been working towards my plan. I’m going to leave and start afresh somewhere new. I’ll need a little money to do that. So carefully, ever so carefully, I’ve taken a little here and there from homes when folk were out. I only took from those I saw at my cottage the night they burned it down. I know that doesn’t make it right though.
The illness amongst the cattle, the spoilt food and the gutrot? I could try and claim more power than I have but that’s just some bad luck, some common sicknesses that are spreading through the village and what with them all slacking from work and housekeeping they’re leaving food out too long in this ripe end-of-sum- mer heat.
