Wonders of the Invisible World by Patricia A. McKillip

like.”
    He didn’t answer her tactless suggestion, just gazed at her, frowning a little. They were sitting in a comfortable corner of Adrian’s studio; Ned was sketching her as she leaned back in her chair, too weary herself to draw. Beyond their little lamp-lit world, Adrian and Linley Coombe, Miss Bunce and Marwood Stokes, another painter who had brought a couple of friends with him, sat around the table cracking nuts and drinking and telling stories. Their laughter rolled across the room, but somehow didn’t disturb what lay within the intimate circle of light.
    “I know,” Ned said abruptly. “I’ll take you up north for a rest. To my house on the lake. It’s lovely there, this time of year.”
    She stared at him. “But we can’t just go away together, as if we were—as if we were—”
    “We are,” he said simply, “in our hearts. Anyway, I’m not suggesting that. We’ll take your brother with us. Slade!” he called abruptly, turning toward the merry group. “Let’s take our paints north to my lake house for a week or two. Your sister needs a rest. The scenery is amazing, and we can live on fat salmon and grouse. The house is big enough for everyone.”
    Adrian, who had reached an affectionate understanding with his wine, raised his glass promptly. “Brilliant. Coombe can come and catch fish for us. And Stokes here can shoot. But—”
    “No,” Emma said firmly, raising her voice. “No, no, no. I can’t go now.”
    “But we won’t invite Wilding,” Adrian finished, then peered at her. “No?”
    “I can’t go now. Please.” She straightened, nearly took Ned’s hand, stopped herself. “I would love to go,” she told him softly. “But I’d rather do it when I can truly relax and not have any worries. Anything complicated,” she amended quickly, “like the exhibit or Mr. Wilding’s painting to come back to.”
    “All right,” Ned agreed reluctantly. Their hands and fingers and knees were very close as they leaned in their chairs towards one another. The company around the table watched them owlishly. “But promise to tell me the moment you change your mind.”
    “I will.”
    At the oddly silent table, someone hiccuped. “Slade,” Stokes said excitedly. “What is this we’re seeing? Can it be—”
    “Mr. Stokes, I forbid you to mention my sister’s name in the company of other gentlemen.”
    “Her name will not leave my lips, on my solemn oath,” Stokes said earnestly, hiccuping again. “But are we to understand that this—this goddess and this young painter of the most exciting potential—”
    “No,” Adrian said firmly. “We are to understand nothing of the sort until we are given permission to understand it. Fill your glass and be quiet. Coombe is going to recite all nine hundred lines of his latest masterpiece.”
     
    “You look tired,” Marianne Cameron said brusquely a few days later, as Emma arranged two pears from Mrs. Dyce’s pantry and a bunch of wildflowers from the park on a platter. “You’re too pale, and there are smudges under your eyes. You’ll make yourself ill. Go home and put your feet up. Or go and buy yourself a bonnet. Get some sunlight.”
    Emma shook her head. “Don’t worry,” she said absently, trying the pears in different positions. “I think this needs something else... What do you think?”
    “You’ve got ovals and circles and horizontal lines,” Marianne said, gazing at it, and forgot her advice. “You need a vertical. How about a candlestick? Or your brushes in a cup?”
    “My brushes. The very thing. A bouquet of brushes in a jar.”
    She drew contentedly until noonday sun spangled the river with light, and Mr. Wilding’s face insinuated itself into her thoughts.
    “You’ve got interesting shadows under your eyes,” Mr. Wilding commented that afternoon as, in bearskin and tunic, she took her position. “They make you look even more heroic and doomed. Perhaps I’ll use them... Has your brother been keeping you