" The grass in the meadow is wet and the ground gives a little beneath her feet. The herd of alpacas that have taken up residence in the meadow graze in the far distance. Maggie cuts a path towards the distant stile, watching as a flock of starlings take flight, swooping up from the earth and across the bone-colored sky until they come to settle in the treetops.
Stepping into the woods, Maggie senses the shift in atmosphere; here the air is a little cleaner, the light a little softer, glancing off the smooth, silver-grey trunks and dancing in the green canopy. She breathes the trees' exhalation, takes it in and makes it her own, inhales the moist-earth scent rising up beneath her boots and fills her lungs. The leaves rustle in the breeze, dripping the last of the raindrops in a steady beat. "

― Hannah Richell , The Peacock Summer