the woods are lovely, dark and deep
If he could hear my thoughts, he would know that I have no interest in arguing with him. The fact is—he’s right. I have read enough poetry and romance, had enough childhood crushes to understand that a sidelong glance is infinitely more weighted than a long stare; that the mere brush of one shoulder against another often says more than a thousand kisses.
I am a girl, after all. I know things.
But none of this comes to pass. There is no argument; instead I am silent, watching him closely as he wades through the knee-high sea of grass, my gaze focused through a thicket of red lashes.
For a moment, as he comes to meet me, we are silent. Like statues. Or paintings. Just one heartbeat of pure, lucid noiselessness.
But then the world pours in to fill the empty space. I hear the rustle of his footsteps in the field; the song of birds, becoming drowsy, overhead; the wind, gushing through the branches of trees that are still afraid to unstiffen after the way winter has treated them. Somewhere far away, a little creek gurgles over rocks. Cicadas sing. I even think I can hear what the scholars say is the music of the spheres; the harmony of celestial bodies—the sun, the moon, the stars—as they slide into the right places. (This is a fantasy. How much simpler would life be if the universe really were, as that theory suggests, nothing more than a musical puzzle?)
But now he has come to stand beside me, and there is no music in existence that could overshadow the way my heart races at it.
I feel my pulse clench like a fist inside my chest. Next to me, he is taller than I had pictured it; my head reaches just above his shoulder, yet I don’t feel small at all. Instead the shadow of his figure falls over me like a blanket—it is a comfort. And as we walk I find myself leaning oh-so-slightly closer and closer to him with each stride, unconsciously seeking the heat of his body as the night grows longer and colder and darker.
I focus my gaze on the deer-track as we walk, placing my steps carefully. I don’t know if it’s that I’m trying not to look at him (this is what the writers would say), or merely being careful that I don’t scrape my legs on the thorny bushes that line our path. It doesn’t matter, anyway: I can still see him out of the corner of my eye, tall and dark and regal. My ear twists toward him as he talks.
“Ah! The Night Order,” I repeat, so enthusiastically it’s almost—almost—an interruption. “I’ve read of them. I was browsing through foreign stories the other day, and—well, isn’t it interesting? Some cultures think the moon chased out the sun, that night only came to follow day; and some think the sun chased out the moon, and day is but an interruption of the night. Sort of like—well, is your skin black spots on white or white on black?”
I turn to look at him, and I am half-grinning, my face lit silver by the moon. I expect I will catch him off guard.
But he is looking at me already. My gaze widens and my smile freezes: not in disappointment, but in pure surprise.
