The runaway of the disturbing title story is Carla, a congenital 'bolter', who has neighbourly fantasies that take on a frightening afterlife Elsewhere, a stagestruck girl finds life is more Shakespearean than even she imagines while Tessa, a young country woman with strange powers cannot foresee what will happen if she makes off with a plausible charmer The stories unravel layers of the past, and different versions of the truth the characters learn that if you look too closely at anything - the past, the truth - it may crumble