The weeks go by. Raphael wanders in his own mind. Sometimes he asks for his brothers and April takes him down to the little collection of graves in the woods. He stares at them as if they are the graves of strangers.
Casey catches her crying in the kitchen over the broken bowl, porridge spilled across the floor. He wraps her in strong arms. Raph's getting thinner, more lost, less able to cope with his wandering mind, his absent brothers. Is it time? Neither of them are ready.
Raphael makes the decision for them. April doesn't know what it is that pulls her out of sleep before dawn has even coloured the sky, but she knows something is wrong. There's a line across the grass where the dew has been disturbed by heavy feet.
She finds him lying between two trees. The leaves have been kicked up around him. Great gouges have been torn into the dirt as he fought out the last moments of his life. He didn't want them to see him die. Not like this. There's enough animal left in him that he knew.
April would gladly have held him as he died. She lies down beside him and cradles his chest, aware as she does that something wonderful has gone out of the universe, something unique and amazing that will never come again.