More than anything

Is she really supposed to believe that? That she was crushed underfoot like a bug? She'd be tempted to laugh at how absurd it is, how juvenile -- the sort of messy, over-the-top demise a child would come up with while playing in the yard -- but there's nothing funny about Jesse's expression.

"No," she insists. "That's--I'd remember if..." if the last thing she saw was an ominous shadow, or the shape of an enormous shoe descending towards her. No amount of pride or denial could erase an image that bizarre.

And she doesn't remember that. She remembers... the earth rumbling. The groan and snap of branches being bent and broken. The rush of displaced air. A ledge, and a long drop, and reaching for a handhold and missing, and you know what, she doesn't want to remember anymore.

Greta stands, her chair scuffing across the floor. "I think I ought to go," she says, the strain of remaining calm and polite evident in her tone. She can't listen to any more of this, she needs to get somewhere else.