At the Stanza Asylum, converted from an old mill, the night had its own rhythm. Mira, a seventeen-year-old volunteer, recorded the hoots of owls, the steps of deer and the splash of otters. She knew these voices like melodies, but this night something sounded different. The silence between the sounds was too thick, as if the forest itself was tightening its breath. The moon stood low, cut by a line of turbines over the loch, and the water on the weir shimmered like scattered glass. - Spike? - Mira pushed back the trellis, as the redhead had already managed to claw at it. The fox, with a ragged ear, held her lost whistle in its mouth and watched expectantly. It nodded its head towards the path, as if saying voicelessly: come, now. Mira dropped the torch around her neck and whistled briefly, sharply, on tiptoe. Igor came out of the office, a year older, smelling of bicycle grease. They followed Spike deep into the pine forest, where moss muffled footsteps and thoughts. An owl hooting like a metronome measured their way, and hedgehogs shifted like spiky boats. But something was disconcertingly consistent: roe deer stood in a row, rooks circled over one spot and a badger clung to the edge. - 'You can see the whole school gathering in the gymnasium,' whispered Igor. The fox slowed down and looked round, only then to disappear into the tunnel of grass by the old track. A herd of deer stood in the clearing, motionless as a sculpture of smoke and steam. In the middle, a young bull jerked a leg trapped in an old wire noose, hissed in pain and fell silent. A wolf with a radio collar, seen earlier on camera but now without a hint of hostility, slid out from the opposite side. He looked at Mira as if he knew the answer, then laid low. The air trembled as the entire pack turned their heads towards them, expectantly. Mira knelt by the grass, feeling the wire buzzing like a live string. - 'Calm down, we can do this,' she whispered to the bull, though her heart was beating unevenly and loudly. The fawn circled in a half-circle, stopped and raised its tail like a sign to start. The wolf lifted its head, the deer took a step back, and the forest again tightened its silence. And then a metallic clank came from behind the pines, and a cool streak of light moved through the darkness, aiming straight for their location. Igor grabbed Mira's arm, as if afraid to disperse the arrangement of an incomprehensible contract. The light trembled on the bark, slid across the wolf's yellow eyes and hovered over their faces. At the same instant, the fox growled a warning growl, and a short one came from the darkness: - Who's there?