But she became upset. He was holding her too hard, not letting her move. She asked him if he didn’t like her. He told her the truth: He couldn’t imagine his life without her. What he didn’t tell her was the fear and pity he felt in the blood and bones of her. What he couldn’t explain was that he mustn’t smell her, touch her, hear her, or taste her but had to cling to her surface like a water strider. The signs were everywhere. He had seen the pool of shadow in the deer skull, the gums rotted back from the teeth, as if that deer had learned to snarl. He had seen the flies like living jewels on the naked gel of the rabbit; soon would come the maggots, which would make it the light of the waters, worming upon the limestone places, layered with the bones of the dead, Roh’s bones. He knew he had to learn to live by light alone, teach his nose, his tongue, his skin to see; to know not the depths, the organs, the innards; be not the living wound; know not the suck of mud; give up all senses but sight. What other end? God made man from mud. Man now must lead these limbs to light. For the creatures of the earth have snouts and see dimly; our gods are light, blinding; our eyes fill us, steep our cells. But he could still feel her nipple hardening against his tongue, could still see the band of shadow over her eyes, the open empty socket of her mouth.

After they had made up, they lay at the entrance to the barn in the sun, the full sun. She was still naked, which frightened him in case someone came, but she didn’t care. Annie never cared. He lay with his cheek against her belly and kissed her below her navel, touched his lips to the margins of the thin harsh hair between her legs. Had smelled her then, scent of ash, of dead leaves, of soil, truffle scent up through layers of earth; snouting, rooting at the mortal scent. Like her breast in his hand, it made him feel helpless, loose in his limbs, knotted at his core. He needed to see this scent in something, to get it out of him, out of him, out of him. But he remained, as she combed her hand through his hair, and he listened to the liquid sounds of her stomach, and smelled her, and felt that surely, if she were with him, his Annie, he could survive.

Lew could see them on the road now, two figures, Raj and Annie, and as they turned up the drive he could hear their animated voices, vivid, senseless as birdsong in the morning, the sound of a world of which he was ceasing to be a part.