The Hunting Party

by Lucy Foley

“Sometimes,” the gamekeeper says, “at this time of year, you can’t use the road at all. If there’s a dump of snow, say—it would have been in the email you got from Heather.” Emma nods. “It was.” “What do you mean?” Samira’s voice has an unmistakable shrillness now. “We won’t be able to leave?” “It’s possible,” he says. “If we get enough snow the track becomes impassable—it’s too dangerous, even for snow tires. We get at least a couple of weeks a year, in total, when Corrin is cut off from the rest of the world.”

He has taken lives, many of them in fact. And not just animal. He knows better than anyone that it is not something to boast about. It is a dark place from which you can never quite return. It does something to you, the first time. An essential change somewhere deep in the soul, the amputation of something important.