She could never go down there, because Peter Schiller was there. He had pinned her to the sled and put those words inside her, and then he had gone back to the house and left her there with the words inside. It was as if—she tried to think how it was—he had suddenly touched her breast. She felt he had delicately wounded her in some way.

A light went on over the garage: the party had spread to the kitchen. Through a sliver of window between translucent curtains she saw someone pass clearly between blur and blur. Down in the playroom someone must have opened a window, for Catherine could hear the out-of-tune piano coming from the front of the house. A voice cried “I can’t find it.” There was a burst of laughter. The window shut.

For a moment she had been drawn into the warm room and the laughter, and now she was banished to her cold tree. She remembered standing at the top of the slope, feeling the moonlight pour into her face. It seemed a long time ago. Catherine felt that something strange was happening, that at any moment the house below might start slowly sliding away over the snow, like a great, silent ship with yellow windows.

She heard the piano again: someone was coming to get her. From the garage Len Anderson, wearing a sweater but no coat, stepped onto the driveway. He had his hands in his pockets, and he hunched his shoulders quickly against the cold. He looked up at the willow, and then at the pine, and walked rapidly across the driveway, stopping at the side of the hill. “Catherine?” he called. She wondered if he could see her through the dark branches. “Here,” she answered, feeling absurd. Len raised an arm and waved. “O.K.!” he said, and turned around and went back into the house.

She supposed they were all talking about her. Where was Catherine? Sitting in a stupid tree. Everything was strange, all the houses were about to float away, the moon was looking sorrowfully for Catherine, but no one was there.