Sublime

I am superterrestrial, he thought, and passed untouched through crowds on Aldleigh High Street with the waters of his body drawn up by the moon with the tides.

‘We are solving a mystery,’ said James, examining Grace with pleasure, and becoming extraordinarily handsome. ‘Would you like to see?’

Grace Macaulay, then: seventeen, small and plump, with skin that went brown by the end of May. Her hair was black and oily, and had the hot consoling scent of an animal in summer. She disliked books, and was by nature a thief if she found a thing to be beautiful, but not hers. She didn’t know she couldn’t sing. She was inclined to be cross.