The darkness was like the gloom of any night. The wind that stirred the curtains above her bed was cold, but Kit lay amid its chill, unaware.
She had lain there for long, trying to still the passage of time, that record of motion. She had quieted the motion of her body. Outstretched, her arms and legs had been without movement until sensation had receded. They were like remote peninsulas of the vast continent of her body, and she was retreating farther and farther into the stillness and dark distance. But the persistent throbbing of blood and the gentle wind within her lungs could not be stilled.
It should be, she thought. Time had really stopped when Al died and she had tried to make it go on by thinking him alive. She couldn’t end the illusion, she couldn’t retreat far enough into the
