We smiled at each other. “Do you think that’ll ever get old?” I asked.
“I hope not,” he said. “It doesn’t even feel real yet.”
St. Andrews looked completely different from our first visit, like a summer resort. The North Sea was a glassy sheet, and the beach could have been Mediterranean. Golfers speckled the old and new courses and packed the terraces outside the hotels. We heard American accents everywhere.
The renovated cottage was gorgeous. Wooden floors, fresh white paint, cute kitchen and bathroom, brand-new windows throughout framing the stunning views. When we opened them, a salty breeze made the muslin curtains dance. We took the second-floor room at the front for our bedroom, and Sid moved his work stuff into the attic, where he had views to both sides of the building.
My new colleagues had left a welcome basket and stocked the fridge. In the evening we made a picnic and took it to West Sands Beach, where we found a nice spot in front of the dunes. The tips of the golden grasses twitched. Sand stretched a mile in either direction. In the distance, across the water, we could see our cottage.
We sat shoulder to shoulder and toasted our future with warm beer, chatting as the light faded gently, smudging outlines, softly shrouding the town and the ocean.
Mum had had some words of advice for me before we left.
Living together for the first time is bumpy. Make sure you communicate.
We had that covered, I thought. I’d met a gentle, intelligent man. We loved each other and talked to each other, so we’d figure it out. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so hopeful.
“You happy?” Sid asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Very.”
“Me, too.”
We stayed until the temperature dropped and we could barely see in front of us, then we gathered our stuff and walked home in the darkness. Stars blanketed the sky, brighter than we were used to, and Sid pointed out the constellations he knew.
I could have written a paper about astrology as it appeared in manuscripts, how it was used in alchemy, witchcraft, medicine, or whatever else you wanted to know about, but I realized I’d never studied the stars themselves as intently as I did that night.
They created a sense of wonder in me; I thought they were beautiful, an ancient world in themselves, a silent witness both to history and to our future. I felt more viscerally tethered than ever to the ancient texts I studied.
When I tried to explain what I was thinking to Sid, he said, “But stars are so much older than humanity. We’re irrelevant to them. Did you know that any element heavier than helium needs to be forged in a star?”
“I didn’t,” I said. The science felt irrelevant to me just then, because I was too lost in my thoughts about history and symbols, about the stories men and women tell themselves as they try to predict their destinies.
It amazes me now that even though I was immersed in the world of ancient signs and symbols, I saw no omens in my own life.
Instead, I believed Sid and I had enough agency to shape who and what we became, and that idea kept me smiling as we walked hand in hand back to the cottage beneath the canopy of indifferent stars.
Diana
Diana Cornish sat in her office overlooking South Street, which was just waking up to a sharp wind and smatterings of icy rain. Autumn had arrived overnight, the way it did here. The children who lived in the town house opposite had just left for school. A few early-bird university staff were on their way to their departments. On a morning like this, it was tempting to envy such ordinary academic lives.
At the far end of South Street, only a few hundred yards to the east, the sun was rising behind the cathedral ruins, visible when there was a break in the clouds. It was a sight Diana usually enjoyed: the sun’s rays aligned with the east-west axis of the cathedral, pouring through the orifices where its great windows had once been, telling the town it was time to wake, to work. But not this morning. She’d been up all night, managing a devastating crisis as best she could remotely, grabbing just a few hours’ sleep on the sofa.
She heard a soft knock on her door. “Come in,” she said.
Sarabeth entered, her coat still on. “What’s happened?”
It was a terrible thing to have to pass on bad news, even when it was expected. “The Kats have struck back. Revenge for Eleanor Bruton’s death.”
Sarabeth paled. “What have they done?”
“They burned down Kamila Newman’s lab last night. All her work is lost.”
“Dear God. Is she okay?”
“She has some nasty burns to her hands. She’s in hospital but stable. They’re saying she’s lucky; it could easily have been so much worse.” Watching Sarabeth’s reaction to the news made Diana feel the ice-cold shock of hearing it herself all over again.
“Is everything gone?”
