Tom moved quietly closer and put his hand up to hold her chin. "I"m going away. I"ve got a job a hundred miles from here. Will you miss me?"

"Yes," said Ann and Cecy.

"May I kiss you good-bye, then?"

"Yes," said Cecy before anyone else could speak.

He placed his lips to the strange mouth. He kissed the strange mouth and he was trembling.

Ann sat like a white statue.

"Ann!" said Cecy. "Move your arms, hold him!"

She sat like a carved wooden doll in the moonlight.

Again he kissed her lips.

"I do love you," whispered Cecy. "I"m here, it"s me you saw in her eyes it"s me, and I love you if she never will."

He moved away and seemed like a man who had run a long distance. He sat beside her. "I don"t know what"s happening. For a moment there…"

"Yes?" asked Cecy.

"For a moment I thought -" He put his hands to his eyes. "Never mind. Shall I take you home now?"

"Please," said Ann Leary.

He clucked to the horse, snapped the reins tiredly, and drove the rig away. They rode in the rustle and slap and motion of the moonlit rig in the still early, only eleven o"clock spring night, with the shining meadows and sweet fields of clover gliding by.

And Cecy, looking at the fields and meadows, thought, "It would be worth it, it would be worth everything to be with him from this night on." And she heard her parents" voices again, faintly, "Be careful. You wouldn"t want to lose your magical powers, would you – married to a mere mortal? Be careful. You wouldn"t want that."

Yes, yes, thought Cecy, even that I"d give up, here and now, if he would have me. I wouldn"t need to roam the spring nights then, I wouldn"t need to live in birds and dogs and cats and foxes, I"d need only to be with him. Only him. Only him.

The road passed under, whispering.

"Tom," said Ann at last.

"What?" He stared coldly at the road, the horse, the trees, the sky, the stars.