This particular psycho-meteorological summer phenomenon stood in direct contrast with a similar winter event on the year’s shortest days, when the small gray sun set so quietly and slowly that people failed to notice that the change between night and day had happened at all—and this made them sleepy, and lazy, and content with everything they had.Of course, only the oldest survivors in Green Valley, those who could recognize the telltale patterns of pink and gold in the sky, sensed that an evening of heartsickness was imminent and shuttered their minds against the coming onslaught like someone preparing a house for a storm. So when the summer evening shone its last burnt-pink light on each person’s thorniest desires, most of Green Valley was defenseless against it, especially the young, the dreamy, and the newly in love.Mei, the newest boarder to stake her claim on a cot in the Pennywort barn, told a captive audience of sleepy Penny Loafers how she had always wanted a child but never thought she would actually get one, which prompted one of the women to point out that she was about to have a baby, like it or not.
