Jiselle turned around quickly to see Sara before them now with her arms outstretched, soaring, and then shaking her head of shining, tangled, tawny hair with an exasperated, victorious expression on her face.
Jiselle sat back down.
Outside, there was silence again.
She’d imagined it, hadn’t she?
Or was it still far enough in the distance—just something picked up by the wind? Something that might never arrive. Or something that had already come and gone. Or something that was there, now, waiting for them outside as Sara stood with one arm held over her head in a graceful white arc—so clearly and beautifully the neck of a swan that Jiselle chose not to say a word as the others called out, “Question mark! Fishing rod! Coat rack!” so that she might prolong the mystery of that bird, the passing of that night, and the end of a perfect world.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am deeply indebted to Katherine Nintzel for her help with this novel. I also owe thanks to Laura Thomas and Carrie Wilson for stories and insights that found their places here.
About the Author
LAURA KASISCHKE teaches in the University of Michigan MFA program and the Residential College. She has published seven collections of poetry and seven novels. She lives with her family in Chelsea, Michigan.
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Also by Laura Kasischke
Credits
Cover design by Robin Bilardello
Cover photographs: field © Clayton Bastiani/Trevillion Images; plane © John Lund/Getty Images
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
IN A PERFECT WORLD. Copyright © 2009 by Laura Kasischke. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition
August 2009
ISBN 978-0-06-194182-5
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