From one of the rooms, Feist could be heard singing:

Well it’s time to begin as the summer sets in
You play your part, painting in a new start

The dishwasher whirred merrily, dinnerware acleanse. Another newfangled necessity in this old-fangled estate. The glasses tittered, echoing the debilitating hilarity of the evening celebrations.

The dust – strangely little for a place of its size and infrequent occupation – was beginning to slowly settle. Dancing feet, large and small, had given it a long-overdue stir.

June, July and August said: it’s probably hard to plan ahead
June, July, and August said: it’s better to bask in each other’s

Backlit, the light from the seventeenth-century lamps cast a glow out the window. Two silhouettes on the garden grass freshly watered by the downpour.

Deep in quiet conversation, so as not to wake anyone else.

What were they talking about? Of life, of love, of themselves, of feelings, of reality, thought, and time, of change and chance, of the sheep sleeping and the witches dancing, of self and sense, and of being?

February, April said: half of the year, we’ll never be friends

They moved.

February, April said: don’t be fooled by the summer again.

The light went out.