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Underfoot was all dust and solidified lava, and it was warm to the touch.
    Was that a slight tremor, or did he imagine it?
    “This is far enough,” he said firmly.
    “It’s all right,” she said with a meekness he had not expected. “I can feel it.”
    “A shake?” he asked with surprise. “I wasn’t certain if I had imagined it.”
    “Not really a shake.” She shook her head. “But it’s uneasy, isn’t it—as if it’s asleep but having bad dreams?”
    He could not have put it better. “You speak as if it were alive.” He said it lightly, as if it amused him, but her word “uneasy” was exactly the one he would have used. Ridiculous, really. It was rock!
    “Can’t you feel it?” She turned to look at him. “Through your feet! It is alive. It’s the earth, the heart of it. We see only the skin on the very outside—like a fungus!”
    “Delightful,” he said sarcastically. “I hadn’t thought of myself as a skin disease.”
    “Of course
you
hadn’t…you’re not a volcano.” She smiled at him as if that were a perfectly reasonable point of view.
    He took a step toward her, just in case she defied him and decided to go closer to the edge, perhaps even to look down into the burning heart of the mountain. Was it red? he wondered. Was it molten rock down far below them, seething and boiling where they could actually see it?
    He was seized with a desire to know. How amazing to have stood this close to such a thing and never to know for certain. Perhaps he could see the naked heart of the earth, not covered over with a mantle of rock.
    Candace was staring at him. Was she imagining the same thing?
    “We should go back,” Charles said, although he realized he was saying it more to himself than to her.
    The fine dust at her feet slithered a little and she almost lost her balance. She regained it quickly, holding out one arm to adjust her weight. Then she looked across at him. In that moment each knew that the other had thought of creeping over to the edge and looking down, wondering what they might see.
    There was a puff of sharp-smelling wind. Another patch of lava dust slithered out of position and trickled down the mountain.
    Candace swallowed hard.
    A plume of either smoke or steam belched out of the caldera and drifted up into the sky, losing shape only as the wind slowly dispersed it.
    “We’re going down again,” Charles announced. “Come on!”
    Candace faced the crater. “You are having nightmares, old man,” she said loudly and clearly. “Think of something nice, and go back to sleep.” Then she turned back to Charles and began to walk down toward the vestiges of a path countless feet had made.
    Charles kept up with her. The view ahead spread out as far as the sea, which was now shining like a polished jewel in the far distance. There was no one else in sight, no birds circling, no small creatures on the rock, which was gray-red in color but of the texture of a motionless sea. It was like a riptide stayed in a single instant.
    Neither of them spoke until they reached the first grass. Charles was amazed how beautiful he found it. No cultured plant in a garden had ever looked more passionately alive than these rough greenish-brown grasses springing out of the earth, finding roots and nourishment in what looked like a lifeless waste. What absurd courage!
    He found himself smiling for no sensible reason. He was tired, his back ached, and his feet hurt. They were still miles from home. On the other hand, the weather was fine and dry, and the route was gently downhill the rest of the way. And no doubt Stefano would have made something delicious for dinner.
    “Wasn’t Mr. Walker-Bailey a beast at lunch?” Candace said suddenly, as if they had been discussing it only a few moments before.
    “About Quinn’s work? Yes,” Charles agreed. “I admit, it had the effect of making me want to read it.”
    She laughed. “I’m glad. That’s the last thing he would want. Although I don’t know