Chapter 1

Tonight, she is perched amidst the rooftops.

The street below is darkened, leaves skirting awkwardly, trees boughing and dipping, leaves black against the orange tinged city sky. They have been drawing in throughout the day, the clouds, and now they are roiling overhead, grey, threatening rain. The bad things are coming on the whip of the wind, curling around the faraway street corners, taunting and tossing.

She is keeping guard, perched on the mossy tiles. The wind falls back, then picks up, throws the late begonias across the road into a flurry, she can hear the tear of their leaves, the swift dance of a curled crisp packet edging along the pavement. Not too far away the lights of the bazaar still glow, as they will glow throughout the night, yellow, orange, pink. Faraway there is singing of the desert on the air, a quick laugh, the hot sizzle of spices rising, curry tangled with roses and the breath of autumn. This is mine, this hunting darkness, she thinks, and leans against the chimney. Most chimneys these days are redundant, stuffed with forgotten leaves and ancient, wandering spiders. This one has faint warmth seeping through the damp, with wood smoke churning out softly into the night air.

A lonely figure walking at this time would not be thinking of much other than getting into the warm, away from the promise of rain, shutting the door against sneaking winds and pulling off scarf and threadbare gloves, kissing a wife and touching his grandmothers hand. Namaste. They may be tilting slightly, too much beer and loss at the bookmakers, frowning at the this-way-that-way paving, bumping a hand along a picket fence for support. They would not be paying an awful amount of attention to the identikit houses, leaning faux Tudor facades with their cheap and peeling beams. They would be thinking of warm daal and naan and vegetable curry, steaming rice. They would not notice a hunched figure in the window in one of the darkened houses, lit up faintly by a glow from within, entrapping and scrunching net curtains up in whorls.

Sitting curled up on the sill, propped up with overstuffed, heavy pillows, Zosia, twisted awkwardly, stares out of the window through the eyelets in the net. Jasper is pawing and snuffing to get up, but she is busy. She watches the darkened street, and focuses. The crinkle of whirling crisp packet, the swift boxy roll of a cigarette carton that scuttles into view and departs stage right. The tense night breeze stirring up the leaves into a frenzy then dropping them, bored, then teasing, taunting, picking it up again. The street lights gleam off Zosia's slim glasses, dance off her pale eyes, and she is there.

The wind catches her hair on the rooftop, creeps down her spine, as she takes a breath and drifts off and into the road. The world is one of racing trees, pools of orange and the darkening, secret shadows. She drifts lightly, patrolling, the wind half passing through her, cool like a secret. A car quietly rolls past, pushing against the wind, heading to the park where swings clank emptily and plane trees toss in the night. She follows, watchful, on edge for them, the secret threat, the others, for they are watching, lurking, somewhere out there in the night. Below, a figure, stumbling. Distracted, she eyes him, wonders, What's his story? Twisting on the curl of the breeze, she coils up to street lamp level, tails him, watchful. Up there, in the gathering night, the edging gloom of the park. She tingles and thrills. The power is in her hands, tangled up in her insides, electric.

And the curtains are dragged open, not without some difficult tugging, and there is the glow of light in the hallway, the snuffle of the dog pacing and babcia's firm shake. Zosia. Zosia. And she's back, inside, disorientated. The wind and darkness is in her head and mists her eyes. The cool on her spine.

“Zoshka. Is late. You sit there too long. Work tomorrow.”

Babcia is thumping cushions, plumping, rearranging, a scatter of jewels at her throat. “Come away from window now. Is draft. You catch ill you know. Off off.”

A thump and a squeal, Zosia has stood unsteadily on the dogs tail. He leaps around, affronted, eyebrows pulled, looks at her in disgust, then stamps off to examine the bin.

“Sorry dog” she calls softly after him, softly pushing her feet into slippers, making her way back in, trying to tangle her mind back into her head, pulling it like strands of a dream, retaining it and binding it like a ball of spider webs. The moss of the rooftops, the warmth of the chimney, the exotic tang of the breeze.

She makes her way upstairs, trailing her hands over the bannisters, watched by the pictures adorning the staircase (so many smiling people there, and then occasionally her face, sitting, frowning off camera, elsewhere).

Swings by the bathroom. “Night mummy,” she calls softly, not to rouse her. Silence and then a door creaks open just as Zosia is in her room.

“Night, love.” Her mother's voice, and she can see her shadow, the slim paintbrush in the role of hair ornament, the light scent of flowers and sweat. “You sleep tight.” Father calls, Night, and she calls back to him, closes her door. Downstairs, babcia is clicking things on and off, checking and double checking locks, the gas, the heating, before heading to her annexe that juts into the garden, cloistered by vines. The sigh of the boiler winding down, rush of a tap somewhere. Zosia hears her parents murmuring in the next room, then later babcia's steps towards the toilet. A sudden interrogative sniffing at the foot of her door, snuffling heavily, pausing suspiciously and then starting up again. Zosia pretend-sighs, but feels a warm rush, gets up and lets the dog in. He wags his tail perfunctorily, waddles over and leaps heavily onto her bed. She has to push him around to get back in and under the covers. Eventually she falls asleep, the warmth of the dog pressing against her knees; the night, alive, watchful, pressing up against the windows.