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Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
Muriel’s frown deepened. And then, a wicked satisfaction curved her lips into a smile.
Maybe a minute or two of levitation was in order.
She straddled the Rover. “High as you can, boys.”
Kit trotted over and gripped the frame with the others.
“One, two, three.”
Her feet left the ground. The wheels left the ground—not simultaneously. She tipped forward, then back, and then she was hovering, six feet in the air.
She could see the fading glimmer of the ocean.
She filled her lungs. The air smelled faintly of salt, and more strongly of smoke and grass and strawberries left too long in the sun. It smelled of summer, and she drew more and more into her lungs, so she’d never forget.
The camera shutter popped.
32
Time that week went topsy-turvy. She took naps at noon and watched meteorites shower down from midnight until dawn, lying in the grass, head on Kit’s shoulder, every nerve wakeful and crackling. She ignored the inexorable sweep of the clock hands and instead divided portions of the day and night by her own unhurried transits, to the rock pools, the cove, the beach, the tennis club, the Towans, the engine house. The holiday felt endless.
And then, abruptly, she reached the end.
It was the final day. She packed her specimens and Kit’s paintings. She picnicked with Kit, Lucy, Gwen, Nelly, Thomas, and James. She and James took a farewell walk on the beach while Kit and Thomas bathed.
“You told me you despised anything striped,” she reminded James in a murmur, noting where his gaze tended. “And Thomas is always dressed like a barber’s pole.”
Thomas was at that very moment splashing with high knees through the surf in his red-and-white striped bathing costume.
“I must have been feeling contrary,” sighed James. “Stripes are the very spice of life.”
Kit tackled Thomas around the waist and down they both went. The splash sparkled.
She could stay longer. The thought was a sparkle.
She and James had their tickets, yes, and he was due back at the hospital, but she didn’t strictly require the two full weeks she’d allotted in London to put her affairs in order. James wouldn’t mind. Thomas had changed his ticket and planned to travel with them. If anything, she’d get in the way.
There was so much left to do here.
She and Kit hadn’t yet gone to the lighthouse.
He hadn’t shown her his old canvases.
They hadn’t discussed the contents of the letter she intended to send the Satterlees.
She hadn’t modeled for his picture, of Cynisca, princess and charioteer.
He hadn’t climbed the trellis below the balcony of her hotel room.
She hadn’t helped him overcome his fear of snakes.
He hadn’t told her all his stories of Cornish giants.
They hadn’t played cards, or dominoes.
They hadn’t sung a duet.
