Quicker than the Eye

“Vinia …?”

She slipped from bed and ran to the window of her high second-story window.

There on the fresh lawn below, calling up to her in the early hour, stood James Conway, no older than she, seventeen, very seriously smiling, waving his hand now as her head appeared.

“Jim, what’re you doing here?” she said, and thought, Does he know what day this is?

“I’ve been up an hour already,” he replied. “I’m going for a walk, starting early, all day. Want to come along?”

“Oh, but I couldn’t … my folks won’t be back till late tonight, I’m alone, I’m supposed to stay …”

She saw the green hills beyond the town and the roads leading out into summer, leading out into August and rivers and places beyond this town and this house and this room and this particular moment.

“I can’t go …” she said faintly.

“I can’t hear you!” he protested mildly, smiling up at her under a shielding hand.

“Why did you ask me to walk with you, and not someone else?”

He considered this for a moment. “I don’t know,” he admitted. He thought it over again, and gave her his most pleasant and agreeable look. “Because, that’s all, just because.”

“I’ll be down,” she said.

“Hey!” he said.

But the window was empty.

They stood in the center of the perfect, jeweled lawn, over which one set of prints, hers, had run, leaving marks, and another, his, had walked in great slow strides to meet them. The town was silent as a stopped clock. All the shades were still down.

“My gosh,” said Vinia, “it’s early. It’s crazy-early. I’ve never been up this early and out this early in years. Listen to everyone sleeping.”