“Very good,” I said, then I closed my eyes also and began. “Behind Grange House, there is a long, long path, overgrown slightly and shadowed by the old trees that grow either side, whose wide boughs cover the air above the pathway. It is a damp day, and the path holds all the moist in it, so you must travel in your stoutest boots and step around the bogged-down center of the most inland place.”

“And where is it the pathway leads?”

Irritated, I opened my eyes. “Do you wish to follow where I see?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then you must give over asking questions that skip you to the end before you have set one foot upon the path.”

He nodded. “Right you are. Continue, please.” And he folded his arms once more across his chest and closed his own eyes. I watched him a moment to see he did not sport with me, but he remained dutifully so, eyes closed and his head tipped slightly to the left, as though he waited for the story to be poured directly into his imagination. I nodded, closed my own eyes, and continued.

“It was perhaps twenty-three years ago, a woman walked alone through the trees, dressed simply and with no eye to pleasing anyone but her own comfort, her lithe grace easy to see beneath the dark blue wool of her dress. She knew the path well, but she did not walk on that day with any determined sense of direction; rather, it seemed, she drifted with the slight breeze between the spruce boughs, stopping here to rest and watch the sun slanting down to the understory growing up beneath the higher, older trees.”

He coughed. My eyes flew open, and I had the sense that he had watched me while I spoke, not keeping his own eyes closed to listen. “What is it?”

He smiled. “Excuse me please, Miss Grange. The understory?”

I looked at him blankly.

“Just now you spoke about the understory. Growing beneath the trees. I wondered had we departed the path for another place entirely?”

“It is a figment of speech—it means undergrowth.”

“Ah, that is good.” And he closed his eyes again and waited. But I was chary now of his posture and folded my own arms across my chest and calmly watched him, waiting to see what he did. He remained silent.

“What is it you want?” I asked him.

His lips curled into a little smile, but he did not open his eyes. “The end of the story. What is it this woman in the woods is after?”

“What should she be after?” I retorted.

“Well, if she is an ordinary mortal, I expect she should be after love.”

I sniffed. “Exactly.”

He opened his eyes then. “Is she after love?”

“Nay.”

“Why not?”

“Are you after love, sir?”

I believe he colored slightly. “No.”

“Exactly.”

“Come, Miss Grange, step down off the horse named Exactly and speak to me plain.”