Free Black Dog Summer by Miranda Sherry Page A

eyes once more and tries to slow down her breathing, but she is so rigid with tension that fresh sweat seeps out of her skin and into her already soaking sheets.
    â€œI know your pills are finished,” Bryony whispers. “I heard you taking the last one in the middle of the night.” Gigi doesn’t respond, but Bryony can see the frantic movements of her cousin’s eyes beneath their gray lids. “Does this mean you’re going to get up now and have breakfast with us?”
    â€œWhat day is it?” Gigi croaks, eyes still squeezed shut.
    â€œSunday.”
    A week. I have been dead a week. Gigi’s story thread, a bruised, dark red, whips round and snakes back into the past. I follow.
    Last Sunday, Gigi had woken early and gone outside in her pajamas to practice her sun salutations alone because Simone was in Scotland. Gigi liked to do her yoga and think of Simone performing the same flowing moves half a world away in an icy stone castle by a loch somewhere.
    As she stepped off the stoop, the crumbly orange soil of the driveway was cool between her toes. She could’ve put her mat down in the clearing beneath the lucky bean tree, where she and Simone usually performed their morning asanas, but the close proximity of Johan’s cabin made it impossible to feel the calm she craved.
    She walked all the way down the curving dirt drive to the gate, unlocked the padlock, and headed left towards the dam.
    The dew clinging to the tips of the grass stalks caught the early sun, making the pathway look as if it was flanked by a thousand tiny lightbulbs. When she finally arrived at the rickety deck, she unrolled her yoga mat with a flap that sent a flurry of birds winging upwards out of the reeds. She could feel the shape of the wooden planks through the mat beneath her hands. Downward-facing dog.
    Gigi doesn’t want the memory of the day to progress beyond that quiet moment, but it does. It races all the way to the gathering storm clouds on the hill, the farm gate flapping open, and the acrid smell of excited male sweat that hovers like a strange new poison sprayed over the yard.
    Gigi makes a high, helpless sound like some strange engine starting up. It makes Bryony’s stomach plunge and churn.
    â€œAre you all right?” Bryony asks. She grips the hem of her duvet with fingers that are suddenly icy cold. “Do you want me to call my mom?”
    â€œNo!” Gigi howls. Her face is purple, scrunched up and shiny like a newborn’s. She convulses on the mattress and then wrenches the duvet up and over her head. Bryony stares at the white feet that are now coverless at the bottom of the bed. They don’t look real.
    â€œI’ll just get you a glass of water,” Bryony says, and she stumblesout of bed and runs to the bathroom. She forces her impending tears to stay in as she fills a glass at the tap. She has no right to cry; she can’t even remember what Aunty Sally looked like, except for those silly purple pants from the photo.
    When she gets back and quietly places the glass of water on Gigi’s bedside table, the shuddering mound of bedding has gone still. Bryony notices that there is some kind of reddish sand stuck in the groove around each toenail of Gigi’s slender unreal feet. The indiscriminate, merciless killing of a number of human beings.
    At least, I hope it is sand.
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    Bryony picks at the peeling paint on the bedroom doorframe and watches Adele tiptoe towards Gigi’s bed. The duvet lump is still motionless. Her feet must be getting cold.
    â€œGigi, sweetheart? It’s Aunty Adele.” No response from the lump. Bryony winces as a shard of dried doorframe paint that she’s been picking at stabs under her fingernail.
    â€œI’ve brought you some cereal, OK, love? You need to sit up and have a bite to eat. It’s muesli. Nice and healthy.” Adele gives the lump a brave smile. “I remember that your mom was very into her