<i>The last boxes they’d brought in were soaked. The rain was coming down onto the roof in a steady downpour. Mum was peeling away the wet cardboard of each box to reveal the things inside. The lights were on in the kitchen and the dining room, naked, dusty bulbs that flickered and didn’t quite find every corner. The fridge was in place but they’d only just turned it on.</i><p><i>The smell of rain swept around them in a gust of life, full of the odour of sodden leaves and ocean and warm road that hadn’t been wet for a long time. The front door slammed shut. Dad was stamping his feet in the hall and coughing. He dropped his work boots on the wood one after the other. The first flash of lightning blazed through the kitchen and a rumble shook through the ground.</i></p><p><i>“Jesus,” Dad said, a kind of pleasure in his tone. “That was close.”</i></p><p><i>While the rain intensified outside, and the shadows lengthened across and between them, they ate a hurried dinner of sandwiches and salad that Mum had packed hours ago and taken in an cooler, and then kept unpacking. Another crackling boom rattled the windows. The light bulbs swayed and flickered. Daniel was on his feet, hugging Mum around the waist.“It’s okay,” Mum told him. “We’re inside. We’re all safe.”</i></p><p><i>Mum put a hand on his head, then returned to opening the boxes. She found the candles, and held them up, just as the next crack of thunder split through the rhythm of the rain. A burst of light filled the room and Freya saw everyone as if in a black and white photograph; Dad, a drill and a rag in his hands, his eyes in the shadow of his forehead, Mum beside the table, her hand on Daniel’s head buried again into her side. Then both the bulbs sizzled into death, and the house, like the world beyond the windows, fell into darkness.</i></p>