Calm winds and the gentle splash of early afternoon sun brought the little world of Florence's forest cabin to life. Webs of overnight dew sprawled over the patches of lush grass, their glittering nets flecked with colourful wild blooms that burst from the trees' shade. Teams of bees buzzed between the flowers, sprinkling the fine honeyed scent of nectar along their diligent patrol. The crunch of pebbles and snapping of stray twigs punctuated the peace that lay beneath the crashing of the unseen sea.

    Despite being home to the strangest, most intense job she had ever taken, Elise's breathing always coasted to a slow, even pace when she stood outside the cabin. A small rustic jetty beckoned her over to rest her mind by the lake, to launch her cares across its still surface on flimsy paper boats. Staring into the black mist of the lake's depths provided a subtle reminder of the danger that loomed beneath the bewitching waters.

    "Looking for Nessie down there, killer?" Cadence asked, twirling her car key around her finger as she strolled onto the jetty. She shoved the key into the pocket of her jeans and nudged Elise's arm with her elbow. "Sorry, but that cryptid swam off. Flo scared every other monster away a long time ago."

    "She's not that bad," Elise said as she reeled in her gaze from the heart of the water. She pushed against Cadence's shoulder and crossed her arms, giving out a playful huff. "I'm just taking a minute. It's so peaceful here."

    Casting her eye around the lakeside, Cadence watched a squirrel bolt out of a cluster of foliage. A brief pause saw the creature look at the pair before scampering up the trunk of an old oak tree. "Peaceful until you run into the grump, maybe," Cadence said as she led Elise off the jetty, hopping back onto dry land. "Mind if I squeeze in Flo's meds before you two bookworms get chatty? Deadlines matter, but so do blood pressure levels."

    "At least there's a tablet for her blood pressure." A sigh left Elise's chest as she followed Cadence into the cabin. Though the roller blinds shut out the rich sunlight to keep the kitchen in darkness, Elise did not move to part them. The gloom was more apt for the bruising conversation she was about to have with Florence.

    Cadence rapped her knuckles against the study door and let her hand fall on the brass handle. "Rise and shine, Flo! It's time to get your fix," she cried, inching the door open. The door left Cadence's grasp and carried itself along its hinges until it tapped against the wall, yet no response came. "Uh, Flo?"

    By her writing desk, Florence rocked in her seat, her thin frame buried beneath a mound of tartan blankets. Her glassy eyes followed the girls into the study, breaking contact only to acknowledge the click of the closing door. A single apple core rested on the side table, its knobbly flesh aged to a sour brown. Setting her bag beside her usual armchair, Elise swerved her step around a large puddle of spilled water. Her foot landed beside a cluster of small glass shards, their clear surfaces tainted by a dark brown smear.

    "Oh fuck." Cadence's curse cut off the words on Elise's tongue, and she tore the tangled blankets from Florence's lap and tossed them aside. "What the hell happened, Flo?"

    Half of a broken drinking glass lay in Florence's right hand, blood trickling over its cracked shape from a long cut along her palm. Rusted blood broke out across the front of her cardigan, its blackened roots seeping deep to corrode everything it touched. Many of the stains were touch-dry, yet Florence did not register their presence, nor did she rise to the continued loss from her hand.

    Driven by a sharp intake of breath, Elise snatched up a handful of tissues from a box on the study's shelves and rushed them to Florence's side. "Hold these to her palm and lift her arm up," she instructed Cadence as they swapped the broken glass with the already darkened tissues. "I'll go get something better to wrap the cut with. Are you okay, Florence?"

    The author looked through Elise without a word. Even as Cadence wrapped her injured hand in a patchwork of scrunched tissues, Florence let no more than a grunt of discomfort leave her lungs. Elise lingered for a long moment, then gave up to clear away the bloodied glass, snatching up a tea towel on her way back.

    Bringing the towel to the study, Elise shuddered at the sight of the crimson mess that blossomed around the writer's hand. "This is seriously a bad time to lose your words, Flo," Cadence said as she took the cloth from her friend, a bitter smile appearing on her face. "Never thought I'd actually want you to scream at me again."

    "You and me both," Elise said, collecting the bloodied tissues into a blinding red bundle. She ran her hand over her brow and gasped at the dense layer of sweat that came off her skin. "Is this what she was like when you said she blanked you?"

    "Well, she wasn't hiding a crazy stab wound that time." Searching Florence's face for a flicker of life as she looped the towel around her hand, Cadence shrugged and shook her head. "But yeah, this was it. She'll look at you, do things you tell her to, but she won't make a peep."

    Elise pressed the soiled tissues into a ball and left it on the desk. "It's...creepy," she said, kneeling by Florence's side. The longer she watched, the more evident the twist of shock in the author's expression became. Fiddling with her necklace, Elise steeled herself to take hold of the author's uninjured hand. "We're here with you now, Florence. Cade's going to sit with you and phone for an ambulance, and I'm going to look for more things to slow the bleeding with, okay?"

    The author still did not speak. As Cadence peeked at her mother's wound inside the towel bandage, Elise took the ball of tissues and left the study.

    A muffled crunching sound reached Elise's ear in the corridor, sourced from the pebble-strewn road that approached the kitchen door. She ran to the counter and rolled the blinds open, groaning as a black sports car pulled up to the cabin. "Great. Of course a cold caller shows up now," she muttered to herself, rolling her eyes at the figure emerging from the car. "Wait..."

    He was unshaven and wearing a darker suit jacket than usual, yet Elise immediately recognised the vehicle's occupant as James, her seminar leader. With a keen focus, he took a sleek black ring binder from the front passenger seat and paced towards the cabin's back door, locking his car as he reached the doorstep. His air of confident ease unsettled Elise more than his sudden presence itself. Not only was James stopping by Florence's home, but he had visited enough times to know to use the back door.

    Elise took a deep breath and opened the door. "Hi, James," she said, false enthusiasm masking her surprise. Her seminar leader's broad perspective was a welcome help with most issues, yet Florence's injury needed a more immediate remedy.

    Their eyes met, and James' comfortable composure slipped away in a heartbeat. "Ellie! What a surprise," he said as he scrambled to present a smile. Stood on the edge of the doorstep, he held his cheerful expression until he saw the cluster of bloodstained tissues in Elise's grasp and the distinct sheen over her face. "I hope I'm not dropping in at a bad time."

    "Florence cut herself on a broken glass, and she's not talking to anybody," Elise answered with a groan, wincing at the snatches of Cadence's ambulance call that slipped through the crack in the door. She gestured at James' binder as she tossed the tissues in the kitchen bin. "What are you doing here, anyway? You weren't in class earlier."

    Rubbing at his neck, James narrowed his eyes. "I know, and I've been meaning to apologise to you all about that." He fiddled with his glasses and sighed, the silence growing heavier with every extra second. "I was taking a few intense writing and editing days, and I guess my heavy work rate caught up with me. I only left the cottage I'd hired an hour ago, and I came straight here to return the drafts I'd looked over for Florence."

    "Really? How do you know Florence?"

    "Publishing is a small world. She actually taught on my creative writing programme back in my student days." Stepping into the kitchen, James placed his binder on the table and perched himself in front of it. Elise followed the file's arc to the table surface, yet James' reclined body kept its spine from view. "I was hoping to go over some of the annotations I'd made with her, but if she's hurt, that has to come first. Have you called for an ambulance?"

    With her eyebrow raised, Elise opened a drawer beside the sink to search for more tea towels. "Her daughter's sorting it in the study," she said as she pulled out a bundle of cloth. Though James appeared calm in his position by the table, his tapping fingers and slight fidgeting unsettled something in Elise's core. "Is it normal to ask a romance author to check over a thriller story?"

    James stroked at his stubble. "Writers can be interested in genres they don't necessarily publish in, Ellie. Besides, love can be the wildest of thrill rides, don't you think?"

    As James waited for her answer, Elise's ears captured more of Cadence's call. They were just a few notes, yet the memory of their song cast Elise's mind back to her friend's car, to the sofa they shared, to the comfort of Cadence's relaxed embrace. "I suppose," she replied, as she tore her eyes from the study door.

    "Need proof? My next workshop's tomorrow afternoon, and I'm still looking forward to seeing you there." Taking up his binder, James held it close to his side and chuckled to himself. "Don't worry, I'll save the real hard-selling for the classroom. You're clearly busy here, so I'll just leave these drafts in Florence's study and then get out of the way."

    Cadence turned, her face falling when she saw the creak of the door did not signal Elise's return. "What? Who the fuck are you?" she asked as she rose to her feet, pinned to the side of the chair by the need to keep her mother's arm raised. Her shock faded after a moment of taking in the man's face, yet the recognition lit a different fire in her gut. "Aren't you Ellie's uni teacher? What the hell are you doing in my house?"

    Armouring his chest with the binder, James shifted his speech into his most reassuring tone. "Ah, you must be the daughter Florence speaks so much about. Glad to finally catch you at home. I'm James, one of your mother's friends from back when she used to teach."

    "Nice try, specs, but Flo doesn't do 'friends'," Cadence answered with a flick of her damp hair, her words hanging on taut strings in the air between them. "How did you even get in here? Where's Ellie?"

    "It's alright, Cade. He just came to leave work for Florence." With her first step inside, Elise reeled back at the sheer wall of heat that swept over her. The study was as sweltering as her skin told, and she moved the doorstop to keep the entrance open. "He told me he sometimes gets her to check over his writing."

    "And you just believed him?" The venom in Cadence's tone sizzled through Elise's veins, and the cutting gaze she cast over both Elise and James threatened to draw blood. "Look, dude, I've never seen you here before, so either piss off or –"

    "James?" As she struggled through her slurred speech, Florence blinked away the mist in her eyes. She pulled her free arm to her lap, yanking on her wounded arm in Cadence's hold. "What the devil are you doing, Cadence? I don't need manhandling, girl."

    Groaning and rolling her eyes, Cadence unfurled the towel bandage around her mother's hand. "You do when you mess yourself up like this! How long have you been bleeding out here, Flo?"

    Florence stared at the gash along her palm, confusion drawing tight trenches across her brow. "I haven't a clue. Leave it be, will you? It's just a nick." She squirmed in Cadence's clutches, yet a fit of breathlessness soon ground her resistance to a halt. Through harsh, hurried breaths, she ushered James over. "Don't just stand there gawking like a blasted doll, James. Bring me whatever you're bringing me."

    "I would, but..." With his eyes pinned to the open wound on Florence's hand, James tugged at his shirt collar and placed the binder on a shelf. "You should get that looked at first. I'll leave it here and you can look over it when you have time to yourself."

    Even as the room's suffocating heat sourced wells of sweat from the depths of Florence's body, the author retreated into her cardigan like a lurking chill bit at her fingertips. "If you insist. Bloody young things, fussing over nought," she hissed to herself, crying out as she pressed her injured hand on the arm of her chair. Cadence reached for her mother's wound, yet Florence batted her away until the exertion drew choked coughs from her lungs. "Stop crowding me, alright? I'm not bloody dying, so back the hell up."

    James gave Elise a cursory nod as he left the room, his hands clenched into loose fists. The back door slammed on his way out, and Elise peeked through the kitchen window in time to catch sight of him running a hand through his hair. He may have copied many of the mannerisms of her creative writing seminar leader, but the man that drove away was worlds apart from the James Drake she knew.

    "Are you kidding? What do you mean you don't remember?" Cadence snapped through Elise's contemplations, tracing the relentless trickle of blood from the deepest corner of her mother's wound. "How do you forget fucking yourself up this badly?"

    "Watch your bloody language around me, girl!" With the crimson-soaked towel furled around her hand once more, Florence turned her gaze out of the study window. Between huffing breaths, her eyes surveyed the bloody mess around her, their whites brightening at the stain's broad span. "It's a cut. They happen. It was probably some cursed paper or other."

    Catching her falling head in her hands, Cadence spat out a series of incredulous laughs. "No way, Flo. No book is cutting you open like that." She released a series of frustrated curses as she whipped her jacket off, tossing it into Elise's designated armchair. As she wafted air through her loose t-shirt, she pressed the back of her hand against a nearby radiator. "Why is it so hot in this room? Is the heating on?"

    Florence rolled her eyes. "No, of course the blasted heating's not on. It's the middle of the day – it only comes on in the evenings."

    The study's thermostat hung from a wall beside Elise's seat, and its flickering display dragged her heart down to her gut in an instant. "Florence, you've got your heating on full-blast!" she cried, fiddling with its controls to lower the target temperature. "When did you last use this?"

    "I don't know," Florence muttered. She dropped her gaze to her lap and studied the palimpsest of murky browns and screaming reds that smothered her cardigan. With a wave of her hand, she swatted away the concern that flowed her way. "It must have been one of you blighters. I don't touch that thing."

    "Sure, except we only just got back, remember?" Cracking the study's window open, Cadence let the first wave of cool air rush past her face. "Let me guess. 'Brain fog' again?"

    A sheepish shade painted over the lines of Florence's frustration. After delivering a firm flick to Cadence's arm, Elise kneeled by the writer's chair and cleared her throat. "What Cade means is that we're worried about you, Florence," she began as she fought to steady her shaking hands. "You've been having trouble keeping track of things, right? Cade says you get annoyed a lot more these days too. And just now, it was like you didn't even know we were here."

    "So I have a funny moment now and then," Florence snapped. She moved to slap the top of her side table again, yet the sight of the scarlet-stained towel around her palm halted her before she made impact. "It happens when you get to my age."

    Cadence paced around the room, the contents of her pocket jingling with every step. "Spare me the 'bitchy old lady' routine. You're like, what, fifty-eight? Faith's dad was still learning the names of her foster kids when he was seventy."

    The intrusion of Cadence's foster mother's name sparked the fuse of Florence's patience. "He had to be sharpish about it, what with how quickly she gave them up," she grumbled, the crackle of her flaming temper breaking through her words. "You two are doing my head in. Get lost, will you? Melody's coming soon."

    With a roll of her eyes, Cadence paused her pacing in front of her mother. "Seriously? Mel's not been over in months, Flo."

    "What are you on about? I was just talking to her yesterday!"

    A dread-tipped spear tore its way through Elise's chest, and each of her words landed in the study with a leaden thud. "It was me you saw yesterday. Melody hasn't been coming to see you for a while now," she said, the ache between her shoulders growing the closer she got to uttering the hardest truth. "Florence, I think we should look into getting you assessed for dementia."

    Florence quaked in her seat, fear draining the colour from her features. "What did you just say to me?" she asked, her words almost undetectable in her quiet, frigid tone.

    "We want to help, really," Elise added with a hand to her chest. "That's why we need to know if there's something behind all these little moments you keep having."

    "How bloody dare you!" The crack of Florence's joints snapped through the room, pushing Elise back to the study door. "What bloody cheek! Coming into my home, telling me I'm going nuts – if you want to help so much, you can piss off back to whichever hole you spawned out of!"

    The author's hot anger whipped around Elise's neck to choke her into silence, and only Cadence's touch on her shoulder kept her on her feet. "Come on, Flo. You know Ellie's right. Everybody can see you need help."

    "I don't need any blasted help," Florence said, lurching out of her seat and slamming her cane into the ground. Blood escaped her hand's binding to fleck the floorboards with escaped life. "And I certainly don't need anything from a pair of nosy, impertinent, entitled little brats like you!"

    Elise moved to leave the room, yet Cadence's hand held her in place. "Sorry for giving a shit when my mother stabs a fucking hole through her hand!" her friend cried as she closed the gap between herself and her mother. "Next time, I'll wait for you to cut your whole arm off, okay?"

    Trembling on the spot, Florence leaned on her side table, her face tightening with discomfort. "Just piss off, the pair of you," she slurred through her rigid mouth. As soon as she finished speaking, a series of dry choking sounds tore from her throat.

    Concern swept Cadence's anger away in an instant, and the girl caught her mother as Florence's right side buckled beneath her. "Shit, Flo. You okay?"

    Her mother gave no answer. Helping her back into her seat, Elise tried to call Florence's attention, yet the author's eyelids remained drooped low. "Cade, we need to phone for the ambulance again now," she said, looking up at her friend.

    Pulling out her phone, Cadence took a deep breath and dialled the number. "Okay. I can do that. What am I telling them, exactly?"

    "You need to tell them that we think Florence is having a stroke."