Chapter 23: Whole Night

Katja answered the sign on the next island with a card.

TOMORROW. AFTER BREAKFAST.

She held it up at the cliff edge until the people on the far ridge cheered, and then she took it down and wrote another.

NO RULES TONIGHT.

She pinned it over the Night Rule on her tarp.

"Which one wins?" Harvey asked, reading both.

"Mine's newer."

Next to it, in Dot's handwriting, someone had nailed up a third card.

RULE EIGHT: THE CAMERA CREW HAS GONE TO BED.

Teddy's tripod stood in the dirt beside it, with a sock over the lens.

They walked out to the north cliff with one blanket and nothing else, the way they had gone out the first time.

The Floor lay far below them now.

Around them the sky was strung with islands, and a lamp burned on every one.

Katja spread the blanket on the flat rock and sat down on it.

"I'm going to talk," she said. "I want you to know in advance."

"That's the best news I've had all week."

"The whole time."

"The whole time," Harvey said, and knelt in front of her, grinning, with the chipped tooth showing.

She took his face in both hands.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," said Harvey, delighted.

He kissed her slowly, with his thumb along the scar through her eyebrow.

It was nothing like the other nights. Nobody was listening, nothing was ending, and neither of them was in a hurry.

He undressed her one piece at a time.

He kissed each part as it came bare, her shoulder, her ribs, the inside of her bad forearm.

"That's where you touched me first," she said. "I filed it under bleeding."

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