«Strange,» she murmured. «Now, all of a sudden, twenty-four hours, one day, traded for ten million billion years, sounds fair and good and right.»
«It is, Clarinda,» he said. «Oh, yes, it is.»
The bolts slid back, the locks rattled, the door cracked. Her hand jerked out, seized the bottle and flicked back in.
A minute passed.
Then, as if a gun had been fired off, footsteps pelted through the halls. The back door slammed open. Upstairs, windows flew wide, as shutters fell crumbling to the grass. Downstairs, a moment later, the same. Shutters exploded to kindling as she thrust them out. The windows exhaled dust.
Then at last, from the front door, flung wide, the empty bottle sailed and smashed against a rock.
She was on the porch, quick as a bird. The sunlight struck full upon her. She stood as someone on a stage, in a single revealing motion, come from the dark. Then, down the steps, she threw her hand to catch his.
A small boy passing on the road below stopped, stared and, walking backward, moved out of sight, his eyes still wide.
«Why did he stare at me?» she said. «Am I beautiful?»
«Very beautiful.»
«I need a mirror!»
«No, no, you don't.»
«Will everyone in town see me beautiful? It's not just me thinking so, is it, or you pretending?»
«Beauty is what you are.»
«Then I'm beautiful, for that's how I feel. Will everyone dance me tonight, will men fight for turns?»
«They will, one and all.»
Down the path, in the sound of bees and stirring leaves, she stopped suddenly and looked into his face so like the summer sun.
«Oh, Willy, Willy, when it's all over and we come back here, will you be kind to me?»
He gazed deep into her eyes and touched her cheek with his fingers.
«Yes,» he said gently. «I will be kind.»
«I believe you,» she said. «Oh, Willy, I believe.»
And they ran down the path out of sight, leaving dust on the air and leaving the front door of the house wide and the shutters open and the windows up so the light of the sun could Hash in with the birds come to build nests, raise families, and so petals of lovely summer flowers could blow like bridal showers through the long halls in a carpet and into the rooms and over the empty-but-waiting bed. And summer, with the breeze, changed the air in all the great spaces of the house so it smelled like the Beginning or the first hour after the Beginning, when the world was new and nothing would ever change and no one would ever grow old.
Somewhere rabbits ran thumping like quick hearts in the forest.
Far off, a train hooted, rushing faster, faster, faster, toward the town.
