After the night of the blurred night sky, everyone understood that Polly was blind as a bat, so nearsighted that when they took her down to the harbor, she couldn’t see the swans, or the large schooner moored to the dock—she thought it was a building, not a boat. Merle made an appointment with the eye doctor but they missed it and the next for one emergency or another. Polly didn’t care, because people would only ridicule her at school. Rita, who never seemed to be listening to any of these conversations, took Polly to the greenhouse, arranged her canvases, and asked her to say what she could see from five feet, ten feet, twenty feet. She’d scribble down notes, let Polly wander off, and rework the paintings.

“Well, they’re beautiful,” said Dee, when she saw the canvases. She gave Rita $50 for a small oil that might have shown a bird. Dee finished her vases, which were about eighteen inches high, plum colored, with blue and green and gold vines that seemed to run from one to the other, linking the two. She asked Merle to cut some corks for the tops, in case someone wanted to use them for storage. Polly asked if Dee would make one for her, and Dee said Polly would have these someday.

It was still hot, and almost unbearable in the upstairs bedrooms. They spent a chunk of every day lounging outside on a frayed, brightly colored quilt with Lemon, who lay on her back panting, and sometimes with May, too. One afternoon, Polly, with her fuzzy vision, was slow to realize that Dwight the parrot was on the blanket next to them, and he and the dog were nose to beak, Lemon cross-eyed and seemingly paralyzed. A second later May floated through the air and dropped onto Dwight’s back.

Edmund ripped the cat away while Polly grabbed the shrieking parrot. She ran him down to the witch’s house, and Dwight talked to her the whole way. He said watch the cards, dear, watch the crazy lady, be nice to the boy, a lifetime of advice along with dumb dog, pretty hair, turn on the news, tell them to go away.

When she reached the witch’s porch, Polly put Dwight down and felt his breast and back for blood, and asked him if he was okay. Tell them to go away, said Dwight again, this time to the closed door.

Polly knocked. “Thank you, dear,” said a voice. “But go away.”

“The cat jumped on Dwight,” Polly called. “I think he’s fine. Please don’t kill my cat.”

Mags Mags Mags, said Dwight.

The woman said nothing. Polly backed down the porch steps and watched from the lane. The door opened and Dwight hopped inside. Polly ran home and found Edmund on the stoop, May sitting next to him.

“Is he dead?” he asked.