" But I felt obliged to do whatever I could do...if I left a door closed and it transpired that somebody might have lived if I had only opened it in time...I couldn't bear that...so I had to try the door no matter what. I prayed that it was locked, but it opened and I saw the Señora standing by the window in the moonlight, with her back to me. She was holding a rose cupped in her hands, as if about to drink from it. She was standing very straight, nobody stands as straight as she was standing, not even the dancers at the opera house..."

"Dead?"

"No, she was just having a nap. Of course she was f*ing dead, Lucy. "

― Helen Oyeyemi , What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours