Ashes Remain

by Alethea Stauron

  “I didn’t think of that.”

  “Lucius, I wanna say…” nodding, “I can feel you near me. And with something like that… I needed to hear it. I was starting to…” She takes his hands and places them over her heart. Her heart beats so heavily it nearly wakes her, “I needed proof from someone else. I was starting to lose hope.”

  His thumb caresses her collarbone. “Baby, I’m miserable without you. I’m coming back.” He tries to undo the memory loss with a kiss to her cheek. “Remember his words. I’m in love with you. Say it, so you’ll remember. Repeat it over and over again. That really happened.”

  “I do. I ache for your return. This memory was all I had as proof that I’m not going out of my mind. That you’re coming back and it’s not all in my head.”

  “It’s real.” He presses her warm fingers to his throbbing chest. “My chest hurts all the time. I have shooting pains down my limbs with want for holding you. I cry out of nowhere when people aren’t watching, and I don’t think I would care if they did. I’m a complete mess, and I’m barely hanging on. I needed to hear you say it. I had to send him. I needed to hear you profess to somebody that you’d wait for me. That was my friend… Artie. His name’s Artie.” Concern pulls at her as he continues. “Baby, remember. I need you to remember,” he says while wishing he could undo the last few minutes of dream dating.

  Her eyes float up. “I wish I could’ve done something different—

  “Don’t do this.” He tries calming her, but she’s already on the verge of whimpering regret.

  “— so… you wouldn’t have been so mad at me the night you left me.” She feeds soft strands behind her ear. “Are you still mad at me?”

  “No. I wasn’t trying to… I’m sorry I yelled at you and made you cry.” His whisper tickles beside her hair. “I didn’t want to. Baby, if anything I was yelling at myself. My situation. It was my fault.”

  “When will you come for me?”

  “When I have permission. I dream about it all day… every day. The moment I have permission… you’ll see me. I can’t break the laws. My general will know.”

  “Who is he? What’s your general’s name? I’ll ask for you. I can write him a letter.”

  “You can’t write him anything. He won’t receive your letters.” He hikes a brow. “Believe me, don’t write a letter.” Her hazel eyes slow him for a moment and he gives her the same answer, as he does every night. “When you find out who your father is, I can ask for an entire army to protect us. You have to find out who he is on your own.”

  “Tell me…”

  “Baby,” he strokes her cheek, “even with all my power, I can’t help you beyond this. Your mind is my biggest enemy. Read the journal your dad left.”

  “I’m tired of you talking about the journal. I want you to come home to me. I don’t want to read a diary. What does the journal have anything to do with us? You never knew my dad. How does my dad make a difference about what your general says? It’s just a diary. A dusty old book. My dad is dead.”

  “You’re not listening, baby, even in your dreams. Why won’t you listen?” Lucius embraces her. “Please, baby, who is he? Find out. Look for him. Try harder. It’s not what you think. It goes far beyond us in this war.”

  “What? What war?”

  “Someday you’ll know,” and his presence exits her dream. Lucius opens his eyes while still stroking her jawline. He gazes down and wipes tears from her cheekbone. “I can never be with you, if you don’t listen.” He stands and watches moonbeams brush across teeny hairs on her neck. Lucius breathes her aroma in deep, as the shooting pain resumes over his chest.

  Another day. Another failed attempt.

  “You, stubborn woman.” Heavy boots mope toward the master bedroom door and he polishes over his heart. “How much longer will you fight me on this?”

  ◆◆◆

  Josephine awakens under blankets a few minutes later. “What war?” Her eyes adjust to a spiraling ceiling fan, drawing circular shadows over white spackle. A whiff of his scent enters her sinuses, making a deeper breath easily spread her lungs. “Aw, these waking moments after dreaming about him are always torture.” She curls a stretch backward. “I smell him all over me.”

  “Her saying it like that makes me sweat.”

  Josephine cuddles a pillow. “I wish this was him,” She sighs until she no longer has air to push. “I’d trap him here.”

  Lucius puckers his breath out in the hall. “I’d let you.”

  “My dreams are confusing sometimes.” She arranges herself sideways and gazes at an open, hopeful window. “I wish I could see you climb through those just one time to get me.” She giggles quietly, “Yep, talking like you’re here. Listening like you’re gonna say something. I must be crazy.” She yawns and reels her hips toward a hidden safe. “My dreams tell me to read a dusty old journal.” Her eyes adjust to abstract lighting. The driveway light that sits at a cattycornered angle from her second story window, barely peeks through from the overhang’s shadow. “Almost every night I dream of you talking about the journal. I wish my mind would stop and just let me enjoy my thoughts of you. All I want is to see you again. Nothing makes sense. I’m walking around in aimless circles, waiting on you.” She rolls a finger over her sheet. “You never even knew my dad. What’s my brain thinking? I guess I’m trying to figure out how to get you back. I need a project in my life instead of… whatever nonsense my mind’s doing.”

  “Ugh…” Lucius slaps his head. “Persuading her to read the journal isn’t gonna work anymore. I’m making her lose interest at this point.”

  Josephine stands to her feet and dresses in a flowing skirt. “I bought this at the Mexican market near the river.” A short twirl of the skirt reminds her of the dream. She closes her windows for the day. A driveway’s light aids her search as it peers through. The light governs over a covered porch that displays dry pine needles and leaves stuffed in the water trap. And a lonely blacktop is scarcely visible by the light. Josephine studies for any headlights that might wander down her secluded street. “I know it sounds weird…” her breathing brands small foggy places over pane, “but I can sense you.” Cold glass is rubbed across her forehead. “It’s like you’re here. Like you’re right next to me and hearing everything I say.”

  Lucius snatches his bottom lip between his teeth, nibbling for a moment. Keep your feet, soldier, he orders himself. He’s careful not to cross the line. The urge has grown in difficulty these past months. He’s allowed her to sense him… but partially. He lassoes her with the strongest persuasion allowed, stopping short of the constant interference that would give him away. But it’s not without a price. He risks potentially tarnishing his emotions, and hers. She recognizes him enough on her own and it alarms and tempts him. He reminds himself, Hold your stance. You need an army… you promised.

  His attention is snapped out from deep thought when she says, “I’ve done lost my mind. Thinking you’re here.” Her fingers climb the window, walking her middle and index fingers along with each thought driving through her memory. Any attempt to piece together whatever makes him feel closer.

  Her dream.

  She remembers her dream. By golly, it felt like he was in bed with me. Everything seems so real. His smile. His fragrance. The warmth of his hands caressing my face. His soft-spoken words that brushed over me. I want that again. She remembers. “That’s right. My dream. That one dream… or memory. That guy. The guy that said you loved me. I almost forgot about it.” Her brows weave together as she locks the curtain between two knuckles. “Your friend, the one who couldn’t give his name. Or did he? It started with an A. It’s faint, but I remember. I think.”

  Lucius presses lashes together and leans against her loft wall. “I hope he doesn’t get mad. I can’t erase it. Not this. Not completely.”

  “It’s so vague. Almost like I made it up myself. Oh well…” sniffling, “perhaps I’m gonna be the crazy cat lady after all.” She takes a few steps back. Curtain
material slides across her fingertips as she pivots toward the dresser.

  Josephine opens a nickel coated clip to a box on her dresser. An earthy smell wafts up at her. She’s greeted, as she is every morning for the past month, by a pile of natural origami found on her front porch. The woodsy smell coats her fingernails. Crackles follow her fingertips down toward the bottom of dried leaves. She picks one up.

  She locates an oak leaf. “I found this on my front porch. Just as mysterious as anything.” The leaf is etched out in the center. Not the common etching of a hollowed leaf, but most definitely left by someone or something. Maybe the wind, she thinks some might say. But not this one. The inner symbol on the leaf snags at her heart and calls her to believe. “This can’t be a coincidence.”

  The shape of a heart expresses through leaf veins. The craftsmanship is perfect. Too perfect to be a random occurrence in nature. “Maybe it’s a sign.” She places greenery back over the pile of similar leaves, studying them. Pine needles occupy her collection with braided weaving of the filaments into hearts. They are woven in a meticulous style, much like the basket he gave her as a gift for their first date. White ash bark has been removed from an area of her land — acres away. Bark couldn’t have simply transported itself, not from that area of her woods beside the lake. How would a heart shaped piece of bark make its way to her front porch and be laid on a welcome mat for her to find? Even swirls of the bark make hearts.

  The occurrence happens nearly every day. A miracle how several objects are picked up from around her land, left in the center of the welcome mat. Every element with little designs in them. Most are hearts. Or maybe that’s just what her mind sees now. Hearts in everything. She closes her knickknack box. “Mysterious. Maybe… I never noticed before now — how some things grow.”

  Josephine opens a jewelry box and raises a turquoise necklace even with her eyes. A small locket dangles the reflection of a desk lamp over her irises. “This’ll be my sign for you today, baby.” She opens the locket and studies the first leaf she had ever found. The keepsake left by the mysterious wind that started blowing through the day after Valentine’s Day. She’s shocked every time she sees it, but the routine reminds her that she’s not crazy.

  Weeks have passed since she picked the original artwork up. A heart-shaped clover fragment remains. Fresh and green on its edges, three times bigger than any cloverleaf segment she’s ever seen before, and forms a perfect heart. She wouldn’t have previously cared, except, one minor detail she had never seen before had almost made her cry.

  In the center, a perfectly precise purple heart winks back at her as the tiny silver hinge of the locket opens. A heart the color of his plaid shirt. The same shirt she saw on the Valentines visitor less than twenty-four hours earlier. If it was possible to stick material inside of a leaf, then she would swear it was from his clothes.

  Simply a mystery with its tiny thread patterns flawlessly charted. The decoration is identical to the pattern he wore every other time she saw him. Even the line or two of the crisscross outlines where purples meet the blue design. When she saw the oversized section of clover, that moment was the first time she believed in signs. The first time in a long time she had believed in anything.

  “If I see you,” she says, “I hope you know by me wearing this that I’m thinking of you.”

  Outside on the porch, Lucius releases his chest. “I wouldn’t want it any other way.” He gathers an acorn from his pocket. The acorn is bent, by his kinetic abilities, in the shape of a heart and smells of his lips. His pheromone. He kisses shelling one last time. “I can’t give much. I’m glad you accept this of me,” shrugging, “Or whatever you believe it is. You accept it. You accept me, and is keeping our memories alive.”

  ◆◆◆

  Josephine enters her kitchen, tiptoeing around Leo’s howling for breakfast. “Okay, Leo. Goodness, you are spoiled.” She tosses the empty can into the trash and glances into the foyer. The family portrait hangs in a glassless frame. “I’m gonna fix it. It’s time.”

  Outside, Lucius removes his little symbol from his lips and places his love emblem on her welcome mat. He sneaks around the corner. “I know I shouldn’t,” gripping the side of the house, “She looks for me every time, and could ruin my camouflage if I keep this up much longer. I’ll probably make this the last one,” jingling earthy articles in his pocket, “Maybe?”

  Josephine touches the doorknob but pauses. Hoping with a little prayer. “Please,” closing her eyes, “… let there be another sign that he’s coming back? I know it’s not him but… please?” A dim world greets her before sunrise. Only the subtle light of her driveway and the cold chirps of crickets. She gazes down and reaches toward her answered prayer. “What a funny little acorn.” She giggles and inhales, gripping it firmly with a kiss.

  Lucius covers his heart. His eyes drift shut. “My baby’s kissing me. She thinks of me every time.”

  Josephine dashes up to her collection and places her new acorn upon the pile of other kissable trinkets. “These coincidences and my dreams make life bearable.” Darkened windows reflect small light like the San Antonio River. A soft glow like in her dream. “Hmmm. I dreamt I went to the San Antonio River. I saw him with the sunrise.” She steps toward the window. Hoping. Trying to piece together links in her life. “I’ll go this morning. Maybe he’ll show up at sunrise… like in my dream. Like the signs at my door every morning. Maybe this is a sign he’ll be there.”

  “Baby, it’s still dark out. I can’t…” he nods. He realizes his persuasion works in many ways, and this is just another sign everything is working. She’s faithful. She’s protected. He says, “I’ll take care of you.”

  Josephine travels down stone steps along the River Walk. She passes through bridges and comes to rest in a quiet area away from waking birds. “Please come true.” She’s met with the quiet voice of some stranger in the distance, carrying on with his own personal time. The gentleman is hunkered over a stone wall and praying. Partially lamenting about something. He must think he’s by himself at this hour, and Josephine decides to remain quiet. Keeping her own problems to herself. She hasn’t knelt like that in a long time, and wouldn’t dare bother a man mourning about something for some reason.

  Josephine focuses through shadows beneath dark trees for Lucius’s spiked hair. The colors of the sky are a lighter shade of black, nearing a navy-blue. The praying man in the background helps her doubt to grow, “Even those who pray don’t get what they want.” Her shoulders slump. “Of course, Lucius isn’t here. It was only a dream, and that’s all it ever is for me.” She curls over her knees. “I’m losing my mind like I did when I lost my family.” Each thought wobbles her jaw. She drove out to a river forty-five minutes away. In a dark area before most are awake, she sighs, “I need purpose in my life. Something worthwhile has gotta happen, instead of… living by myself with nothing to do.”

  The thought of wilderness and aloe plants leave her blank. The pool was filled-in almost a year ago. Too chilly out most mornings for hiking, and she wouldn’t want to clean any wild game by herself. “I’m so bored. I have no neighbors and no family. Lucius is gone. I’m seriously going insane by myself.” She thinks of what the gentleman across the way is doing.

  Prayer doesn’t work for someone like me. How would that bring Lucius back? She fans fingers and forces palms with a pull forward. “I drove all the way out here, hoping a dream would come true.” She slouches with a deep breath in her nostrils. A sweetened breeze brushes her cooled morning cheeks. Sweetened fragrance that comes from river water aroma, honeyed from the stone walkway. Layers of sugary treats purchased from vendors over the years have been rubbed into the stones over time. “I wish I wasn’t alone anymore.”

  Ideas and her current circumstances bring memories in like a flood. She remembers walking along the river with her family as a kid. Always a friend or two would join her. There was always someone to make the experience worthwhile. But she realizes the atmosphere is different
when alone. Much more like the poor man lamenting across the water from her. “How do I fix my situation? I’m like a prisoner in my own home because… I’m scared I’ll miss him or something. Sometimes I wanna give up because I have no one to talk to.” She stands to her feet and paces over stones to get away from thoughts about what the gentleman hunched over believes in. She wouldn’t even know where to start if she was so inclined.

  Her dad would pray. He’d pray often with her mom. Sometimes she would wake up early, when the wee hours were unproper to wake children. The darks hours when Wesley would ship off on a mission, and she’d catch him praying with her mom, failing in whispering their goodbyes. Their hugs were tight with his travel bag in hand. She misses the bond of family. The hugs and kisses when all was too difficult at times to swallow down, but the prayer was real. The love was real. The house always felt full of life when other souls lived there.

  She stops mid-tread. “Wait. I don’t have to be alone. I can rent out a room in my house. I won’t be alone and I won’t think I’m going crazy.”

  Lucius grabs a tree. “You can’t be serious, baby. None of your friends would live there.” He presses bark against his forehead. “Why does she make this difficult for me?”

  Sunrise catches her yellow highlighted speckles along the hazel of green. “Wow. It’s beautiful.” She regains her previous tread. “I don’t know who would live at my house anyway. I live in the boonies. Maybe I’ll just get another cat.”

  Lucius opens thankful hands. “I can live with that. Nice to know you’re coming to your senses.”

  “But… a renter. A project. Something I’d be doing to help someone else, until, Lucius comes back.”

  His jaw drops. “Please say she’ll drop this idea?”