Bodice half-done and rising like sweet melons, and Lizzie cares not, she is as bright and winsome, unassailable as the moon itself skipping light through the village, and me, following, dusk against her, a murmuring of our skirts. And the tinkers turn, saluting all, Lizziebeth and her golden hair even now flying loose from her braids and sweet. Fruit piled high beside market stalls and golden necklaces and black-eyed gypsy daughters staring jealous beneath dewy lashes like spider's legs.

And there in the sunlight, Lizziebeth with a fig crushed in her lips and an orange from faraway lands, her lips blushed as red as if she's been sucking red raspberries in the meadow, and all I can think of is for forever, and yes, and yes and I will. Lizzie in the thousand gypsy mirrors. And as if from a dream I wake up and glance about, and the eyes are not so friendly, and the townsfolk are staring.

There is Lizzie, spinning there, spinning, with the berry juice sticky between her fingers and her bodice loosened just enough, and I, I with the peaches clutched in my own fingers, can only stare, moonstruck and terrified.

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