The Bones Beneath My Skin

THE SKY was pink and orange, and the blue was fading toward black as they left the barn a little before seven. The stars were beginning to flicker, and Markham-Tripp was blazing brightly in the north. Steven Cooper said two more days and the comet would be as close as it’d ever be.

Art walked between them, holding Alex’s hand as they stopped outside the barn. She gasped at the sight in front of them.

The front yard had been transformed. Two long wooden picnic tables had been pushed together. White tablecloths covered them. There was a line of baskets on the tables filled with flowers of almost every color imaginable.

Tiki torches had been staked into the ground, the wicks lit and burning brightly. Chinese lanterns were hung from the trees, the thin paper red and green and flickering brightly. Strings of white lights had been wrapped around the trunks of trees.