Mary-Kate laughed, and James smiled as he watched her bring a charging cable over to a shelf of matching products. Her laugh was somewhat musical, and it paired nicely with whatever Miles Davis song was playing. As Mary-Kate returned from the shelf, James pretended to be focused on his clipboard as he raced to think of something clever to say.
She remembered her tea, still steeping on the kitchen counter. Inside the cottage, she picked up her copy of Paradise Lost and motioned for Freydís to follow her back out to the porch. Freydís lay down next to Marianne as she read and sipped her chamomile. It was nearly noon, and the sun found its way through the clouds as Marianne followed Gabriel’s messengers on their way to the Garden of Eden. Her tulips flared like torches in her garden as Satan took the form of an adder in Milton’s landscape. A doe and her fawn pranced through the field behind the church and disappeared into the woods right near the path’s entrance. As Eve ate the fruit, Marianne remarked on how the garden of Eden might just as well be her own.