The wind was rising, so I went to the wood. It lies south of the city, a mile from my home: a narrow, nameless fragment of beechwood, topping a shallow hill. I walked there, following the streets to the city's fringe, and then field-edge paths through hedgerows of hawthorn and hazel.Rook haggled in the air above the trees. The sky was a bright cold blue, fading to milk at its edges. From a quarter...