The change to this wooden mortuary happened fast, as if they had passed into an area that had been blasted by bombs. Only the trees here were still standing, they just lacked leaves, which littered the ground instead, a mix of needles and wide maple-shapes, half-damp, half-baked, as if plucked for roasting under the sun, while the branches stuck in place despite the breeze, as if mourning their loss, unwilling to go on, as the wind rubbed their shoulders and told them it would pass, strong enough to stir circles on the floor that sometimes funnelled up to shoulder height and then fell back, an impossible swirl of twigs and bits of burnt paper. As they passed through, the boy fought the urge to stop and stare at the limbs, to see if they were alive. These trees were too thin for their trunks to contain any deep knots, any eyes, there was no point in slowing down, no way to check if any of them were awake, alert, dozing, or dead, no eyelids to pluck between the thumb and finger and pull, daring the pupil to shrink in the light, to twitch.
