“THE MEETING""Scant rain had fallen and the summer sunHad scorched with waves of heat the ripening corn,That August nightfall, as I crossed the downWork-weary, half in dream. Beside a fenceSkirting a penning’s edge, an old man waitedMotionless in the mist, with downcast headAnd clothing weather-worn. I asked his nameAnd why he lingered at so lonely a place.“I was a shepherd here. Two hundred seasonsI roamed these windswept downlands with my flock.No fences barred our progress and we’d travelWherever the bite grew deep. In summer droughtI’d climb from flower-banked combe to barrow’d hill-topTo find a missing straggler or set snaresBy wood or turmon-patch. In gales of MarchI’d crouch nightlong tending my suckling lambs.“I was a ploughman, too. Year upon yearI trudged half-doubled, hands clenched to my shafts,Guiding my turning furrow. Overhead,Cloud-patterns built and faded, many a songOf lark and pewit melodied my toil.I durst not pause to heed them, rising at dawnTo groom and dress my team: by daylight’s endMy boots hung heavy, clodded with chalk and flint.“And then I was a carter. With my skillI built the reeded dew-pond, sliced out hayFrom the dense-matted rick. At harvest time,My wain piled high with sheaves, I urged the horsesBack to the master’s barn with shouts and cursesBefore the scurrying storm. Through sunlit daysOn this same slope where you now stand, my friend,I stood till dusk scything the poppied fields.“My cob-built home has crumbled. HereaboutsFew folk remember me: and though you stareTill time’s conclusion you’ll not glimpse me stridingThe broad, bare down with flock or toiling team.Yet in this landscape still my spirit lingers:Down the long bottom where the tractors rumble,On the steep hanging where wild grasses murmur,In the sparse covert where the dog-fox patters.”My comrade turned aside. From the damp swardDrifted a scent of melilot and thyme;From far across the down a barn owl shouted,Circling the silence of that summer evening:But in an instant, as I stepped towards himStriving to view his face, his contour altered.Before me, in the vaporous gloaming, stoodNothing of flesh, only a post of wood.”

“My name is Mila, and this is my journey.There are so many places where I could begin the story. I could start in the town where I grew up, in Kryvicy, on the banks of the Servac River, in the district of Miadziel. I could begin when I was eight years old, on the day my mother died, or when I was twelve, and my father fell beneath the wheels of the neighbour’s truck. But I think I should begin my story here, in the Mexican desert, so far from my home in Belarus. This is where I lost my innocence. This is where my dreams died.”

“Do I make you nervous?"His gaze travels from my eyes to my breasts and down to where my dress meets my thighs. "In that dress you do.”

“He sucked some of the rain from my bottom lip, and I felt his mouth smile against mine. He swept my hair aside and kissed me just above the collarbone. He nibbled at my ear, then sank his teeth into my shoulder. I hung my fingertips on his waistband, tugging him closer. Patch buried his face in the curve of my shoulder, his hands flexing over my back. He gave a low groan. “I love you,” he murmured into my hair. “I’m happier right now than I ever remember being.”

“Oh god. Screwtape, I hate you.” I cry and laugh in the same breath as I trudge toward them. My clothes are covered in dirt as I trudge toward them. My clothes are covered in dirt and my hair is matted, but I don’t care. I peer through the basket bars at Screwtape, who looks at me as though I’ve betrayed his trust. I rise and meet Silas’s gaze. “Thank you, Silas,” I say, though the words are quieter than I mean. Something buzzes within me, stirs around in my chest enticingly.“Of course,” he murmurs. His eyes are heavy on mine, his gaze pulling me in. He licks his lips nervously and runs a hand through his hair. Screwtape howls out as the rain increases, droplets clinging to Silas’s lashes and running over his lips. Why am I noticing his lips? I brush my hair behind my ears as the heavy rain drowns out the sounds of the city on the other side of the fence.“Rosie,” he says, or maybe he just mouths the word. He takes hold of my fingertips, and this time I move my hand and interlace my fingers with his. Silas inhales, as if he’s going to say something else, like he wants to say something else, but instead he pulls me to him, closing the distance between us until his chest brushes mine with every breath. His body is warm, and the feeling of being against him and feeling heat from his skin makes me light-headed.“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, but doesn’t break away from me.“Why?”“Because there’s something I have to do,” he says, voice velvety soft. Silas unwinds his fingers from mine and reaches up, wiping the raindrops off my face with the palm of his hand as the stirring in my chest spreads through my whole body, pounds in my veins, begs to be released. I put my hands against his chest as if I know what I’m doing, and he finally leans forward and tilts my chin upward gently.His lips meet mine, tentatively at first, then hungrily, and I clutch at his shirt as if holding on to him will keep me from floating away into the thunderhead above. His hands run down my back, and one rests on my hip while the other tugs me closer, until I think I could melt into him because nothing has ever, ever felt so right.”

“SUMMER DEEP""Summer deep is in the hills again His lady is a lioness Winds of birds blow through the fields again Invaders from the true worlds A coat of grapes is on my back again I ride upon my zebra Pterodactyl beak hat on my brow The truth is like a stranger Be like you could All my friends say.”

“He knelt and slowly ran his hand down my arm, his lids heavy and his lips parted. “Aura . . . where can I touch you?”“Anywhere.”His hand left my arm and drifted to the rise of my hip bone. “And where can I kiss you?”I took a deep breath, long past ready for the future. “Everywhere.”