“Isn’t it always that way when a storm blows up?”

“I don’t really know.”

“I suppose we ought to notice things like that. It’s the difference between really belonging and not.”

She laughed, an attractive chuckle. “I don’t mind being in between. Best of all possible worlds on both sides.”

“I love you for your wisdom,” her husband said, squeezing her arm.

“And here I thought it was for my wit.”

“I like your tits, too.”

“I said ‘wits,’ ” she mock-­scolded, and halted again, listening again. “Tom, the past couple of days, the birds have stopped all of a sudden, even though the weather’s been perfect. I have noticed . . .”

“Elias Johnson and Stephen Scott will now give you the key to Yarkie Village.”

The woman’s usually cool face clouded over. “I’m not joking. It gives me a queasy sense that something’s not quite right.”

Tom Laidlaw was genuinely surprised. His wife was known for her equanimity. But he smiled and said, “Because you can’t set your watch by the Yarkie birds?”

The woman took a deep breath and changed her mood. She doffed her tam-­o’-­shanter, and smiled back to her husband. “Because I’m a witch.”

“I’ll have a word with those birds, anyway,” her husband promised.

They walked on in silence toward the Tinton place, hearing distant summer thunder, and observing the sky flaring with lightning far out over the ocean.

“I hope it rains soon,” Deirdre Laidlaw said. “Last night, Stephen said he’d seldom seen so long a dry spell.—I hope there’s no trouble at the Tintons.”

“Trouble?”

“I don’t like their not answering their phone.”

“They can be taking a walk, can’t they?”

“Not with the hangover Harvey must be nursing this morning.”

“Holier than thou . . . ? Not like you, dear.”

“No,” Deirdre Laidlaw said sincerely. “It’s part of this feeling I have. I don’t know. A sort of premonition . . .”

Her husband stopped and studied her questioningly from under lowered brows. “You’re not given to that sort of nonsense, Dee.”

Her frown was uneasy. “Must be the storm.” Her shoulders shrugged as if without her volition. She forced a smile. “You know about weather changing the ionization in the air, and all that.”

“We’ve been through storms before and your ionization never acted up this way . . .”

“Well, Harvey was so drunk, and Blanche was so upset . . .”

Tom Laidlaw laughed. “So you expect a scene of mayhem and murder at their house?”