“Did you never see a light, Bill? In all your years working’ the moor? Not once? Follow it next. It’ll give you what you seek. Just mind the price.”

She was mopping the hallway that ran between classrooms, trailing dilute bleach under the fluorescent lights, an ersatz of sunlight and swimming pools. 

Did his decision haunt him, now it was coming to pass for someone he knew? Someone he loved, even? Or did he feel noble, like he’d sacrificed something good for something greater?

They had married on a hot June day. After the speeches, Paul loosened his tie and sprayed champagne all over the bridesmaids.

The pear tree had to come with them. Before they polished the silverware and laid each spoon and knife and fork neatly in its velvet bed in the wooden case.

Each held a cropped image of a portrait, rendered in such fine colourful strokes that the banners appeared to be shimmering in the light, though the room was still.