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The moon hovered above the lake, and she and Andrew looked down on it from where they had parked his Jeep at the top of the ridge. She rested her head against his shoulder and watched the thin silvery glow pass in smooth ripples from one end to the other, casting a ghostly circle in the middle of the water like buried treasure glittering from below. "It's amazing out here at night," she said. She couldn't see his face, but felt the vibrations of his voice rumble against her side as he answered. "It is. I just hope it's still dark enough so the police can't see where we left the body." She didn't know what to say to that, so she didn't say anything, and instead continued to watch the moon.
She brushed the hair out of his eyes, letting her hand trail down his cheek. He smiled; when was the last time he'd smiled? When was the last time she'd been this close to him? "You really need to take better care of yourself," she said. He laughed; when was the last time he'd laughed? "I'll take better care of myself when it's finished. I don't have time before that." "Well, you'd better make time," she said, "because I'm not coming to your funeral even if that means you'll have the manuscript done by thursday." And suddenly science seemed completely irrelevant as she leaned in and kissed him, driving away all thoughts of any electric reactions besides the one currently igniting every sense in his body. With her here, what did anyone need electromagnetic theory for?
She was the kind of girl you never noticed. Your eyes traveled right over her, from one end of the dark-paneled priory to the other, passing only briefly on the panels of stained-glass that cast muted jewel tones across the inside of the otherwise sober church. She kept her eyes low, even when the rector was speaking. Making eye contact with the metaphysical otherworld was pride, which was a sin, which was not permitted, which meant damnation. She looked instead on the book of psalms laying in her lap, the page opened to her favorite of King David's forays into poetry. Of course, she did not have favorites. Having favorites was presumption, which was ego, which was sin, which was not permitted.
He looked over his shoulder. They were there, closer every moment, looking at him with eyes torn straight from the pages of Greek mythology, hounds guarding the gates of something, he didn't know what. There was no time for precision of metaphor. He had to get away, and quickly. He turned back to the road and ran as hard as he could, leaping over a rut in the road from a tire track that, overnight, had filled with water. He saw his own face reflected there, pale and panicked, before it had whipped away out of sight and there was nothing there again but the road, the road forward, the only choice. He ran.