It was dead silent, already shot through with her absence in a way it had never been when she was in the hospital, dust motes settling in the still, warm air.
Her face, the face of a saint, a viking Madonna, shone through the faint motes that snowed across the candlelight, drew down its flush from the wine-colored lanterns in the pine.
It had never been a good eye to see with—had long had the mote in it of Lucifer’s pride, Sardanapalus’s luxury, and a mole’s blindness—but it had dropped out and was gone.
Gravity also plays a role on the grandest of stages, because across the universe, from the smallest mote of dust to the most massive star, gravity is the great sculptor that created order out of chaos.