At the top of the bank, each animal in turn crested the ridge with an identical movement, half lurch and half leap, head lowered and withers high. Five of them, six, eight, dark shapes on a pale canvas, and then there she was towards the back, not much more than a gap in the line, a movement, a reflection. There was a low mist, and in the bleached half-light of the winter predawn she was almost invisible, white upon white. Fran's angle of vision also had a strange foreshortening effect, from where she leant with thighs hugged to the radiator at her bedroom window while she psyched herself to move and head along the ice-cold landing. Through the steamed-up glass the doe, that first time, appeared insubstantial, even ethereal. For a full minute after the deer had gone Fran stood stock-still and almost unbreathing, before a shifting behind her from the bed told her Mark was awake.