After a while I remembered I was not alone, and turned to look at Red. He was sitting on the rocks behind me, and he had his book, and his quill and ink pot, but he was not working. He was watching me.

“We’ll stay here awhile,” he said quietly. Then he opened the book and uncorked the ink bottle. “Ben returns later; he has business in these parts. You are quite safe here.” At that, the questions came back to me all at once. How could he be so infuriatingly calm? Would he offer me no explanations? How do you use your hands to ask why? Why did you bring me here?

“Later,” he said. “We have all day. Later, we’ll talk, and I’ll tell you—for now, can you understand that I wished to see those hands at rest, just for a day? That I wished to set my prisoner free, just for a little? Enjoy your day, Jenny. Tomorrow it begins again.”

Why this day? What of Elaine, and your mother, and—But I could not put this into signs. Besides, he knew quite well what I wanted to ask, but he brought out from his pack the leatherbound boards which housed his farm records, and extracted a piece of parchment already half filled with neat markings. He dipped the quill into the ink and set to work, seated there with the open sky above him, and the wide seas before him, and it seemed he had eyes only for his orderly record of the way things had been, and were, and always would be.

So I took off my boots, and climbed down to the other side of the beach, which lay quite untouched save for the light feet of birds. Here there were no great sea creatures basking, but delicate, intricate shells thrown up by the tide, fragments of bleached wood and complex nets of weed. The sand was good under my bare feet, so good that I picked up my skirts and began to run, sore ankle or no, with the breeze in my hair and, at last, the cold touch of the sea around my feet, and my heart beating with the thrill of freedom. I ran through the small waves, and the hem of the blue dress grew wet and gritty with sand; I ran along the beach and the gulls followed high above, crying one to the other. I ran until I was dizzy and breathless, until I reached the far end of the beach, where the rocky headland rose from the white sand. There I leaned my back against the stones and listened to my heart pounding and drew in breaths of wild sea air. I had not realized, had not known how painful a burden had been laid on me, until now, when for a single day I was free.

I could see Red, a distant figure still seated on the rocks. His hair made the only vibrant note of color in a landscape of gray and green and white; flame on the water. He had put aside the book, and was sitting quite still, straight backed, watching me. Perhaps he thought I would try to run away. But no; he knew I must go back, for he understood, at least, that I was bound to complete my task, though if he knew the reason for it he would find it hard to believe. Such things were beyond the comprehension of a Briton. Voices in the head, strange dreams, those he could accept, reluctantly. But there was a whole world beyond that, and he had barely touched its margins.