He leaned still closer, so his face was nearly against mine. “What is a name to the wind?” he asked me. “What is meaning to the stars and this great sea?”

I watched him. “Nothing.” He smiled and cupped my cheek in his hand. “Nothing.”

I closed my eyes, and for the second time that night, I let another’s voice possess me. But this one filled me, as though he breathed his soul directly through my blood, so his love coursed round in my own body, and it was his soaring great spirit that pumped the bellows of my heart.

“This moment is your name. My lips on yours, your name.” He kissed me. “There is no other story but this one.”

I kissed him, lulled. And indeed, I felt as if this moment my soul had stretched newly forward with uncertain steps, treading lightly toward some fresh vision. As if he sensed this, he whispered again into my ear, “Let your mother set to sea. Cast out her language. Cast away her words. They are not yours. Her story is but her own.”

For answer, I leaned my cheek against his cheek and felt the vital warmth of his body enter into mine. I closed my eyes and let him comfort me, his arms stealing round my shoulders and his mouth against my hair. “Write down your words, my love,” he said softly. “Take your great heart in your hands and write your own name upon its door.”

“My name?”

“Your name, and—”

I turned my head, the better to hear his low whisper. “And?” “And mine. Write your own name next to mine.”

A voice clapped out across the water, and there came the distant splash of oars.

“Quick!” I gasped. “They must not come upon us here.” I leaned forward and grabbed hold of my oars, sliding them back through the locks and into the water. Bart did likewise behind me, and our little boat surged forward as our oars drew water. I could not discern the figures in the boat, nor their purpose in setting out, like us, in the middle of the night, into the middle of the harbor; so at first I watched them without interest as we stroked, Bart navigating us around the point where at least we should not be so easily visible. We rowed hard for several moments into the choppier waters round the point, the tide against us and a wind from off the Atlantic blowing broadside as we left the lee of the harbor. A great cloud settled upon the moon, casting the sea into a welcome shadow.