She likes playing Hide and Seek, she likes Blind Man's Buff, but her favourite game is Spin-around. Spin-spin, quicker and quicker in the middle of the garden, while mum is shouting that it's time for dinner and she can already smell the fresh lemonade. Spin-spin, light-headed, with open arms, her hair whipping her face and the garden bushes racing past her eyes. Until her vision goes red and blurry, until there is no faraway, no close, no up, no down.

Then the plastic pink wings of her fairy costume start fluttering in the wind like a bird's, lifting her off the ground. Then the star on the edge of her wand, the one her dad made from silver chocolate wrappings, starts glittering with real magic. She can weave spells then, she can lift her hand against the sunset and see how the sun, round and red like a rotten orange, is smaller than her little pinkie. One day, before the sun has time to hide behind the rim of the hills, she will grab him in her fist and bring him down to play.

And one day he comes down to play; falling on the earth in big, fiery chunks. The smell of dust and molten metal burns her throat, making her cough. Her palms are sweaty and her head buzzes from the screams that echo across the street. She can see that mum and dad are red inside too, just like the sun, and wonders why they've stopped moving, why they won't talk to her, won't hug her. Then someone suddenly grabs her and pulls her away, while she screams and kicks and gets her pretty dress all dirty, and bites her aunt's shoulder to let her go.

She knows she can make mum and dad wake up again if Nell would just let her go back to the them. Because she can wave her wand and work magic, because she can fly and cast spells, because there is nothing she can't do, and the sun is smaller than her little pinkie.

It's always quiet at the cemetery in winter, and she likes it there, with the trees building a frozen fortress around her, standing close together like the fingers of a hand. She lies down on the ground, with her face pressed against the grainy soil, her hair adorned with leaves and little twigs and listens to the wind hissing over the tombstones.

The hours slip away easily, like flour through a sieve, while she lies there waiting. When the dusk finally bleeds into night, she notices that her fingers have turned blue and numb with cold, and she rubs them against the earth, digging her fists into the soil, scraping over roots and stones. Until a nail breaks and blood starts dripping from her thumb.

She brings her finger to her mouth and paints her lips red, making herself pretty for the cemetery statues. At midnight they wake up for her. They open their heavy eyelids and take her flying, granite angels, on their wings.

But the dead are still dead. Her life, indefinitely postponed.

She stands in the kitchenette at the back of the Talon, taking a minute to study her face in the mirror, just before her evening shift begins. She is pretty and she knows it. Smooth skin, liquid eyes, long brown hair, well-trained with hairspray. On the wall over the mirror she has pinned a glossy image of Jesus, the one she has cut out from a magazine. Satisfied with her reflection she walks to the front of the coffee shop, her heels clomping loudly on the tiles.

The table at the corner is empty, but Lex's laptop is still there, the screen blue and flashing lazily, next to two half-empty cups of coffee. A girl with tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses looks over her Vonnegut paperback and orders cappuccino and cherry juice.

Behind the bar she fumbles with the juice cartons and the glasses for some time, when a sudden muffled noise makes her stop and turn around. She wanders to the back door and pushing the handle down she peers outside.

They're there, the two of them. There at the back alley, next to garbage cans, which are full to the rim, puking out paper wrappings and rotting orange peels. Lex has pushed Clark against the wall, jammed his knee high between the open thighs, his fingers working on the buttons of Clark's shirt. Clark is motionless, his arms spread wide against the stone wall, his head tilted back, mouth red and open, making no sound. Lex is loud enough for both of them, his moans, his sighs, the angry filthy words he keeps repeating, sounds rubbing close together until they stop making sense.

Her mind has gone blank. She can only stand there and watch how Clark's shirt is torn away, see the pink of Lex's tongue licking a wet trail along his collarbone, his hands moving under the buckle of Clark's jeans.

Then Clark turns his head around slowly, opens his eyes and sees her. They stare at each other for a long moment before she runs back into the shop, slamming the door behind her. The warmth and loud music catch her by surprise and blue shapes start spinning before her eyes as her vision tries to adjust to the fluorescent light bulbs. She trips, turning her ankle, and the tray falls from her hands, the glasses break on the floor into a million pieces, splashing her with cherry juice.

The customers bounce up in panic while the red liquid slides slowly across the cracks of the tiles, seeping into the rim of the carpet. The girl with the tortoiseshell glasses laughs and cups her mouth to whisper a shushed something in her friend's ear.

Silence has crept over the Talon as everyone stands around in a circle, watching her lift herself up from the floor.

Then, with a series of gurgles and clicks the coffee machine has finally finished preparing the cappuccino.

She stumbles away, feeling the gaze of countless pairs of eyes locked between her shoulder blades.

Back in the kitchenette she leans against the door, her hands hanging limp by her sides, chewing her bottom lip. Her ankle throbs in dull pain.

She thinks about the two of them, what they might be doing now. Clark pressed against the wall crying 'more.. more...' with a voice that isn't his own, thick and quivering. Lex unzipping his jeans, shoving them down to his ankles. The images spread in her head like maggot in an apple. Heat is pooling around her belly, her legs are boneless, giving way.

She turns the lamp on, banishing the ghosts with electricity. The light chases the shadows back behind the chairs and the large white freezers. She bends over her sink, soaping her hands roughly, trying to remove every trace of the sticky red juice. The foam turns pink and then disappears down the drain in a whirlpool of water. The minty scent of the soap clogs her throat until she feels she is going to choke and has to clutch the sink with both hands to steady herself.

Her glossy Jesus stares at her compassionately from across the room. Painted across his chest, adorned with beams of light, his Red and Sacred Heart is beating.