[…] they were talking — not shaping pellets of information or handing ideas from one to anoter, but rolling words, like sweets on their tongues; whic, as they thinned to transparency, gave off pink, green, and sweetness. ‘Next to the kitchen, the library’s always the nicest room in the house.’ Every summer, for seven summers now, Isa had heard the same words; about the hammer and the nails; the pageant and the weather. Every year they said, would it be wet or fine; and every year it was — one or the other. The same chime followed the same chime, only this year beneath the chime she heard: ‘The girl…