Chapter 6: Kate
Contains spoilers
Summary
- Kate hides under a duvet to ignore a crow pecking at her window; eventually, the crow flies off.
- She notices the aged appearance of the room with its stooped ceiling and green walls.
- Kate examines a framed, preserved centipede, mistaking it initially for a snake.
- The silence in the space is foreign to her, spurring feelings of both sickness and freedom.
- She reflects on six years of daily communication with Simon since they first met when she was twenty-three.
- Remembering the night they met, Kate feels out of place among her university friends and longs for solitude.
- In contrast to the busyness of her London flat, the silence here is eerie, and she imagines hearing wildlife outside.
- Recalling her past, Kate reminisces about her childhood distraction with nature and how it led to tragedy.
- As a child, lured by a crow, she inadvertently caused a car accident that killed her father, viewing herself as a monster thereafter.
- Kate withdrew from nature and people, staying locked away until meeting Simon.
- Back in the present, feeling emotionally overwhelmed about a decision concerning a baby, Kate tries to drink water for relief.
- In the kitchen, she finds her late aunt’s exotic liquor collection but deems it impractical to indulge in her state.
- While drinking water, she notices a jar of feathers, including one like the crow’s, speculating it might carry a disease.
- Looking out the window after drinking, she is startled to see hundreds of birds suddenly take off from the trees, silhouetted against the moonlit sky.