The wedding ceremony was a sturdy spectacle with vows unspoken. At one point a fly flew into the mouth of the groom and was left in the valley of his stomach. This shocked one wedding guest into consulting a doctor. There was no cure was the verdict. The guest wore the shock on her face for the rest of her life. The other guests would not look at her.
The bride gave the vicar strange feelings, who thought her the architect of symbols. A great witch with the power of signs. A translator of elegant superstitions to which there was no language but language itself. Her father had taught her how to speak when in days begun, she had ended. The father of the bride was not in attendance. He died before she was born in some strange accident of language. (How most creatures meet their fate.) The bride’s dress was made from unicorn hair, a thousand summers old (which made the guests sweat profusely.) The groom wore a suit that...