I live on an L-shaped island that was once below the sea and I've been steadily growing blind since The Ascension. Lucinda and I were to be married in two days. Sometimes we'd sit at the edge of Briar's cliff and watch the guillemots and kittiwakes, the puffins and razorbills, fly through the belly of a fog. But this other fog that envelops me weighs heavier than my old step-mother's warnings to not let her lamb stew burn, to not sleep too long. Even as a child, I was accustomed to darkness, walking around the house, on old creaking floorboards, with eyes closed, arms outstretched, imagining myself as a bird, perhaps like some red-billed chough who could make spectators with their heavy feet and books of classifications swoon. I was light of foot, quiet as a candle. As a bird, I never faltered in my stepmother's house. But since my eyesight began to fail, I’ve been thinking of lemmings off the coast. I told Lucinda to return her father's dowry and advised her to find a man who could build bridges and connect islands. Find yourself a Viking and not a wisp of man is what I said. She still comes around and I don't answer the door. I imagine the mist outside takes her away. But today is different. Today, I let Lucinda inside. I will try not to expose my floppiness, my tendency to tilt my head toward a sound, my fear of growing too weary to swim or fly. We make studied attempts at inane chit-chat, then become lost in an orbit of silence. "I'm really starved for fruit," I say. My cheekbones suddenly burn. I don't know why I said that. Now the slow determined footsteps towards me, light as those of a child who will raid the downstairs pantry. There is the rustling of clothes, the peeling of garments, the smell of strawberry girls and the pine cones in the hands of mid-morning virgins, the sweet chill they bring from the Mull of Kintyre. She guides my mouth to her exposed breast and I imagine the juice of a melon, the feel of a shaved peach in season. My fingers grope to the other breast and my thirst is no longer satiable. Rising, risen, we embrace and she whispers that we should take a walk. The air will revive me. It is such a morning. Since I am no longer a Viking, but rather a prisoner of my own house, I follow, her hand in mine. I've become her child groom. Her directions are simple and straightforward: "Step left" or "we're turning right." We’re crossing wooden bridges, then it seems we're climbing forever. I am short winded and mystified. We're standing at the edge of Briar's Cliff, she tells me. Her words strike me more as an innuendo than an announcement of location. I inhale deeply and take in the world above the world. We are now so high I can hear the thoughts of the birds flying overhead. They're carrying my stolen memories, my once acute vision. "Let's jump," she says. "But the fall will kill us," I say. "No," she says, "we are each other's blindness. There is no other way." And without further procrastination or wheedling words, we jump together, wing in hand. We're flying, flying. At least, I like to think so. And by the time we enter the blue abyss, way below the house that once sequestered my blindness, the sea will have married us.