Blood and tears were Anna's companions on the dark hillside. The cool night air was sinking down through the trees and shrubs around her, and Anna tried again to cry herself dry.

Dull pain moved through her belly, pain as common as sore feet at the end of the day - but this pain made her want to sob again. She had begun to let herself dream of a child. It had been enough weeks since her last cycle to imagine seeing a tiny person with her husband's eyes at the breakfast table in a pool of sunlight, dabbed in strawberry jam and calling her Mama. Yesterday she had reason to daydream. Today, with this common pain, the dream was gone again.

The most painful feeling wasn't the disappointment, it was the failure. She had the feeling of letting them all down. Letting down the dream they shared, letting down John, letting down the child. She let her heart loose again in this lonely luxury of time, then began to gather herself. She hadn't told anyone of her hopes, not even John, so he would hardly be saddened. It was such a small thing, a little blood that no one knew about. Such a small thing she thought, and was able to weep again just a bit more.

She set off for home, realizing she had lost track of the time. There wouldn't be a proper moon tonight, just a thin sickle coming up late. She quickened her step. Insects sang in deafening choruses as her shoes crunched on the road and the air was sweet with the scent of trees, brought down into the valley by the descending night air. As she neared the cottage she saw something strange: a flood of light.

Just a few steps nearer, Anna's heart sank. John was standing in the doorway; surrounding him was a selection of farmers and footmen with lanterns. Part of her wanted to turn heel and walk back the way she had come.

John saw her first.

He held up a hand, silencing conversation between the men. "Hold on, lads. Here she is,"

They all turned to look at Anna. She wanted to shrink back into the darkness. She walked into the center of the group and said, "Am I the cause of this?"

John addressed the group without looking at her. "I apologize for your trouble. Thank you for your help. I'm indebted to you,"

Hats were tipped at Anna as the men graciously made off for home. John stalked into the cottage.

Anna had a ludicrous need to laugh, and shoved it down. She hung up her summer coat and stood behind him, waiting. He blew a long sigh at the ceiling and then turned to look at her. She had never seen him in this mood. His eyes were like razors, mouth set hard. It was his turn to wait.

"I'm-I am-"

The ice over his features melted as he looked her over. His eyes were soft now. "If anything happened to you-"

"I'm sorry," Even that felt like failure. She had no right to self pity but the tears came anyway.

He still stood away from her. "What is it?"

"I thought...I was enough weeks late that I thought-"

"Late? What do you mean?"

"I thought we might have had a child coming," she blurted, "But we don't, John. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry to you and I'm sorry to the child that won't be here and I-"

Her voice disappeared against his chest as he pulled her in. "Stop, stop it,"

"I dreamed too much. I made too many plans and I didn't realize that-"

"You have been working even harder than usual. We haven't had any diversion from routine for too long,"

"You're not disappointed?"

"Come on," he led her to the bedroom and sat next to her on the bed. "I want a family with you, yes," he pulled her onto his lap, which was an awkward proposition on the mattress and made them both smile, "It will happen in its own time. What I want now," he shook her lightly, "Is for you to smile again. For you to laugh again. I seem to remember a lecture about this being the happiest time of our lives and that we were to make the most of it,"

"Yes,"

"And you have been quite too serious lately. I thought it was the extra work and getting used to looking out for a husband and a cottage on top of it, but this...suffering about a child, or no child, does no one any good, Anna,"

She let her head sink into her husband's shoulder.

"We need a diversion. And I have an idea,"

Anna looked up at him, smiling. "You always have an idea," she pushed her fingertips through the hair at his temple, combing through the silky thickness of it and down the back of his neck. How nice he smelled. She was so glad to be home.

"And another idea,"

"Yes?"

"I've an idea that if you worry me like that again I'll call the constable and have you arrested for spousal abuse,"

Anna stood frowning at the wardrobe. She was sure her green calico maid's uniform had been in the stack with her other old uniforms. She was hoping to take it apart and make herself a light apron for the garden. She huffed and turned in a circle, looking around the room. Then she heard the door and knew that John was home.

She went directly to him and kissed him.

"There it is!" she said, "I was looking-"

"I borrowed it," he smiled, shrugging out of his coat.

"Whatever for?"

He handed her a box. She frowned at him, and gasped as she opened it.

It was one of Lady Mary's dresses, in fact the very dress Anna had fallen in love with a few months ago; transparently thin layers of silk in blues and greens in a loose, cascading cut were accented with falling patterns in the tiniest of beads. The effect was like water. She and Lady Mary had called it "the mermaid dress". Anna lifted it from the protective paper and saw that it was no longer Lady Mary's size.

"Mrs. Ellesmore in the village did the fitting. There was enough from the hem for a bag," he said.

Anna looked in the box and there was a small purse, made from the same fabric.

"The only problem, according to Lady Mary and Mrs. Ellesmore, is shoes. You could wear something you have, but why not go down to the village this week and see what you can find to go with it?"

Anna held the dress against her body and sighed, looking at him.

"But where would I wear such a thing?"

"To see the scandalous new production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in Kirkbymooreside on Saturday night?"

Anna laid the dress carefully in the box. She slid her arms around him. "Are you playing fairy godfather?"

"Why not? You happen to be smiling just now. We'll go see some shocking fairies Saturday. What do you say?"

"A little magic," she said, "Yes,"

Anna's head was swirling with Shakespeare as they walked home. I am that merry wanderer of the night,* she thought, dancing along the road.

Though her new shoes were squeezing her feet, she kept pausing to twirl. The gossamer layers of silk were like nothing she had ever worn. Her carefully constructed, modest dresses held her body in prim posture. Wearing this dress was like wearing air, air that swung luxuriously and brushed against her body. A warm breeze picked up.

"Titania was so beautiful," said Anna, "Didn't you think?"

"She's an actress. All that makeup for the stage. And a wig, most likely,"

"And that scandalous dress,"

"There will be such fuss around town," he was smiling through the words.

"But she was very good,"

"Oh, yes," he said, "I thought it was well done. And I like the play,"

Anna whirled in another breeze, lifting her shawl to ripple over her head. "Did your grandmothers believe in fairies? Mine did,"

He laughed. "And my mother, too,"

"I was told," Anna continued, with little rushes of breath, "To stay away from toadstool rings because I might be carried off,"

He had stopped walking. Anna stopped spinning and laughed. He was gazing at her.

"And you might be carried off still. Be careful. The fairy folk love beauty, they say,"

She tilted her face up for a taste of him. A big moon was coming up with little rushing clouds. A wind blasted above them, shaking the trees with a chorus of hissing leaves. He was taking the pins from her hair and running his fingers through it, loosening it so it streamed around her.

Anna was still suddenly, looking at the shapes of tossing branches in the mottled moonlight.

"What?"

"Oh," Anna had her hand on her belly, "I felt it,"

"Felt what?"

Anna smiled. "My mother used to call it a tug. A very small tug, that happened when...well, before..."

"Before what?"

"When there might be a possibility..."

He stared at her with some apprehension, then he understood.

"You can feel that?"

"Some women can. Especially lately, I think I can,"

He took her hand. "Come on,"

Anna giggled. "What?" she asked, expecting to be rushed home. But he made a sudden stop in the road.

"Take off your shoes,"

"What? Why?"

"Because I'm taking you up there," They looked up at the steep hillside, glowing in moonlight. At the top of a long incline was a piece of flat ground with a view of the entire estate; it was legendary among the younger kitchen staff. But it was a climb.

"All the way? But-"

"You can't hear anything from down here. It's a little pocket of silence. Lambs get lost up there all the time because their mothers can't hear them calling. The farmers have to go all the way up to get them,"

"John-"

His eyes glittered into hers. "No cottage walls," he said.

They arrived breathless, Anna marveling at her husband. He climbed as many stairs as she did, and walked to the village more often than she did, so she shouldn't have been surprised that he nearly kept up with her. They sat on the grass, heaving.

The estate was laid out in dim grey light. Anna pointed at the distant steeple. "There are girls down there tonight, peeling apples,"

He laughed. "Why?"

"It's Midsummer," said Anna, "The girls I grew up with would stay up 'till midnight on Midsummer and peel an apple in the churchyard, trying to peel it all in one piece. Then you toss the peel in the air and it falls on the ground in the shape of the first initial of the man you will marry,"

"My mother used to say they would toss a basket of seeds in the air-"

"To bring the suitors," Anna laughed.

He took her shawl from her and spread it on the ground.

"What kind of magic is in the air tonight, do you suppose?" his eyes were midnight-dark as he took her hand, pulling her up.

"Midsummer. An almost-full moon. And we know there are fairies out tonight," she said. "Oh!" he had unhooked the dress and it slid off her body. "John!"

"No one can see us. Or hear us,"

"But-" her hair twisted over her shoulders as she shivered, not with cold, but with the strangeness of it. He was undressing her completely, outside in the moonlight. Anna laughed, a little hysterically. "John! What if-"

"If anyone sees you," he said, "They will take you for Titania herself. They'll go home and talk for years about seeing the queen of the fairies, right here on the hill," he pulled her down onto the shawl and slid his arms under her. John usually wooed her softly but tonight he nearly attacked her, unleashing a run of greedy, wet kisses from her belly up, and then down. Anna wasn't ready for it.

She was seized by giggles and couldn't stop. She choked them back and quieted herself out of habit, and he looked up.

"Not tonight," he said, "Don't hold back, Anna. There are no neighbors up here. We're alone in the middle of the night in a pocket of silence. Let me hear you. Let me hear you tonight,"

His mouth was all over her. Anna looked up at the clouds jetting across the moon, listened to the roaring trees, and gave over. He was voracious. It was almost like being with a different lover. He went directly to her tenderest nerves and gave no mercy to them, and Anna found herself unleashed in a new way, as if enjoying a secret tryst and not having to answer for it. She was taking a lover, a lover who happened to be her husband. She let her voice go, hearing herself make sounds she didn't know she was able to make.

Anna's throat began to feel raw. She took his face in her hands and rasped, "Now,"

She pushed him down and crawled over him, finding what she needed with just a few well-practiced moments, then she was on him and riding into every sensation she craved, but it wasn't for long. He flipped her, cupping her hips and bringing himself very tightly against her; he paused, running a hand from her throat to her belly and back up to hold her cheek; he stroked her lower lip with his thumb. Anna bucked her hips on him irresistibly.

"Look at me," he said, beginning to move slowly and smoothly.

Anna whined a long, tremulous whine but she kept her eyes on his.

He slid one arm behind her head, bringing his forehead against hers. He was still mostly clothed and Anna needed more; she pulled at the buttons on his shirt and slipped a hand in. His eyes spoke to her, told her a tenderness that a voice was powerless to. Anna could no longer keep contact and dipped into full, unbearable joy for a few moments. When she opened her eyes again and saw him coming to full she reached above her head to twine her fingers in his and lifted her hips, opening herself. They finished with their faces pressed together.

Their hearts were still racing as he stroked her thighs.

"Look at you," he said, "In the moonlight, your hair wild, your skin glistening,"

Anna gasped, "Poetry! Will you be spouting The Bard now?"

He grinned. "Come, my queen, take hands with me. And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be,*" he quoted.

Anna burst into laughter. John curled himself around her on the shawl, propping her legs over his and cradling her; her knees were over her belly. They lay for a while looking at each other, their eyes glimmering with soft silver. A lock of hair trembled over his forehead and Anna's hair stirred as the air whipped around them.

"Maybe we'll make a child tonight, and maybe not," he said, "But we made some magic, at any rate,"

"Oh, yes," Anna caressed his face, "There was plenty of magic,"

*From "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by William Shakespeare