by ML Gardner
“I’m going to get more wood,” I said as I pulled on my coat. She nodded as I closed the door behind me.
“Simon!” I was vaguely aware of her yanking on my arm as I came out of it, blinking several times and taking deep breaths. She stood in front of me, searching my face and eyes. “Simon, what happened?” She looked shaken as I rubbed my eyes with a grimace and then suddenly it dawned on her. “What did you see?” she asked ominously. I looked down at the armload of firewood that was scattered all over the porch.
“Inside,” I said, looking over each shoulder before bending to gather it. “I’ll tell you inside.” I dumped the wood on the hearth in a messy pile and walked to the couch, suddenly tired. She followed close behind me and took my hand as I sat with my head back, eyes closed.
“Simon, what?”
“I saw more things I don’t understand,” I said, blowing out my breath. “Some things I did, but I didn’t like it.”
“Was it bad?”
“I’ve never seen so much at one time before,” I said, sitting up and leaning over to rest my elbows on my knees, cradling my throbbing head in my hands. She rested her hand lightly on my back. “How long was I gone?” I asked.
“Several minutes,” she said, moving still closer to me. “I’m sorry, Simon. I didn’t mean to be so difficult, I just–”
I waved my hand and shook my head, dismissing it.
“I didn’t mean to upset you. I only wanted to stay here with you awhile longer. I didn’t mean to cause problems.”
“Is that what you think?” I turned my head to look at her. “That you upset me and that’s what caused this?” She cast her eyes down and nodded. “That has nothing to do with it,” I said, taking her hand. “Nothing. Being upset doesn’t bring on the visions. Nor does being happy or sad or scared. They just come. I told you that, Elizabeth. I’ve been dreaming like a fiend ever since we got here, and that has nothing to do with you either.”
“The breaker rocks near the ocean. How far are we from the ocean, Elizabeth?”
“About fifteen miles,” she said. “Go on,” she whispered after a moment.
“My visions used to be so clear. I would see people I knew, places I recognized.”
“Is it because of me?” she asked. I sat back and looked at her curiously. Throbs of white pulsating light swirled around my vision.
“Why would you ask that?”
“You said ever since you met me, your visions have gotten strange. I just thought maybe I was muddling them somehow.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible.” My eyes flickered up to her suddenly
“What else? You said there were several things.”
I worried that our time together was growing short, and I was desperate to change the fate of my visions. We needed to leave, but the raging storm outside prevented that. We were stuck there for the night. “More things I didn’t understand. Why don’t we leave in the morning?” I suggested with a pleading squeeze of her hand.
“What about all the people that the sheriff showed our picture to?” I nodded with a frown. It would be hard to travel in the daytime, at least for the next few days, until we put enough distance between us. Where were we, anyway? I wondered.
“What town are we nearest to?” I asked.
“Rockport,” she said. “Why?”
I dismissed it and thought again of the disturbing visions.
“Are you positive that your father won’t say anything about us being here?” I asked, rolling my head over to look at her.
“Positive.” I wondered how she could be so sure. As if reading my mind, she added, “My mother put him in a place like that after he came back from the war. When she saw that he had split. He hated her for it, for a time. Nothing they did helped. It was only after he got out and the local healer gave him something that he got better.”
“How did he get out then? If he didn’t get better?”
“He fooled them. We had a long talk about it once, after we realized I had the same problem.” She looked down self-consciously. “His works a little differently, though. It’s almost like they’re friends. His other one…” She took a deep breath and shot me a nervous look.
“What, my love,” I whispered, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear.
“His other one is named after his friend in the war. The one who saved his life. He died over there, and I think my daddy brought a piece of him back, inside his mind.”
A cold shiver went up my spine, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end, but I tried to maintain a blank face.
“So the other one took control in the hospital and started answering to Daddy’s name. After awhile, they saw that there was only one, so they let him go.”
There was a long quiet moment, and we listened to the wind battering the cabin, rattling the windows and the trees groaning under the strain of the gusts.
“How did the healer help him?” I asked.
“Well, she calls herself a healer, I don’t know that she is though. She’s part Indian or so she says. She doesn’t really look it. She wears these feathers and charms around her neck and sometimes talks in a funny language. Says it’s her ancestors tongue. I think it’s gibberish.”
I stood and added a few logs to the fire. They caught quickly and filled the room with a peaceful glow. Nervous as I was to stay, I was grateful that we were here, warm and dry, instead of out there running wet through the woods. I spooned stew into mugs, cut fat slices of the bread she had smuggled out of her mother’s kitchen and brought it back to the couch while she talked.
“Most of the locals say she’s nothing more than a crazy mess herself. For someone who claims to have a healing touch, she’s always going to the town doctor with this ailment or that. I heard,” she gave a short laugh and continued, “that the doctor was so tired of it, he told her to just start healing herself.” She snorted again then wiped the smile off her face. “I shouldn’t laugh. It’s sad, really,” she said with reproach. “Anyway, she has connections for the medicine she sells through her husband. Her third husband,” she said with raised eyebrows. “The other two died from too much of her medicine.” She gave a disapproving sigh and continued. “Jan is able to get hold of big enough quantities that she can sell it to others and call herself a healer. After a few days, people want after the stuff so badly, they don’t care what she calls herself or what she is giving them as long as she keeps bringing it.” She paused to take a few spoons of her stew.
“And she brought your father medicine that helped him?” I asked.
“I suppose. It keeps the other one away, but he still wasn’t quite himself. He was either really happy or really angry, as if he was in pain. Like I said, he and my mother fought about it a lot at first.”
“Because he wanted it more than anything,” I assumed. I had seen a man brought in for a morphine habit early in my stay at the hospital, and he wanted it more than he wanted to live. I never understood how something could have that deep a hold on a body, but I felt sorry for him.
“Daddy wanted to try the medicine on me, but my mother said no.” Something in her voice hung in the air heavily, and I understood that that part of the conversation was over. I set our mugs of stew on the floor in front of us, both our appetites gone. I leaned back and beckoned her to join me.
“What else did you see?” she asked, leaning over on my chest. I wrapped my arms around her tightly and kissed her hair.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said quietly.
The fire had warmed the room thoroughly, and with the excitement of the day, made us drowsy. It wasn’t long before I heard the soft even breathing of deep sleep from her and rested my head on hers, closed my eyes and drifted off myself.
I’m not sure how long we had slept, but I came up off the couch violently, spilling Elizabeth onto the floor, a confused sprawling heap, the minute the door burst open suddenly and slammed against the wall behind it. We both yelled, and it wasn’t until I got to the door, fire p
oker in hand, ready to fight, did I see that it was just a wind gust that had thrown it open. I put my shoulder to the door, closing it against the hard gust that pushed back against me and then leaned against it, panting and wiping my face. I still shook with racing adrenaline as I took a few quick steps and helped Elizabeth off the floor, apologizing. She grabbed onto me, scared and shaking herself.
“It’s all right. It was just the wind,” I said, holding her head between my hands, I put my forehead to hers. “It’s all right, we’re safe,” I whispered. She looked up at me with wide eyes and short gasping breaths of lingering fear and then kissed me suddenly. Taken aback for only a second, I gripped her waist and returned the urgency of her mouth. She pulled at my shirt, demanding to be let in. I slipped an arm under her legs and lifted her up in one strong sweep, and began making my way blindly to the back room, never leaving her lips.
After depositing her on the bed rather unromantically, she watched me, unbuttoning her own shirt as I ripped mine over my head and jerked the button on my pants. The zipper snagged, and I gave a short growl as I fought with it. It gave way with a rip of fabric and my pants fell away from my waist onto the floor. I stopped breathing when I looked at her, lying on her back in nothing but an open shirt, waiting impatiently for me. I almost choked as she ran her hands down the length of her own body in silent invitation. Fighting the urges of a body that wanted what it wanted, and wanted it now, I tried to be as graceful as I could, crawling across the bed toward her. She pulled me, her hands on the back of my neck, over her and whispered between kisses.
“No one is going to ruin this for us this time, Simon,” she whispered, taking a moment to lick the outline of my lips. I let out a ragged breath and kissed her neck and collarbone, hands urgently grabbing the length of soft curves under me.
“I need you, Simon,” she said, struggling to control the tremor in her voice. “We’re alone, finally.” I knew what she meant; the other one wouldn’t interrupt us. There was no staff to worry about finding us; the storm outside would prevent the sheriff from actively searching.
“Alone,” I whispered into the hollow of her throat. “I love that word.” I felt the soft skin of her inner thighs slide up along mine, and they held my hips in a vise.
“We’re never going to be more alone,” she whispered with a smile.
If her words were going to be completely true, then I must ask you, dear reader, to leave the room as well and leave Elizabeth and I to each other for the next several hours. At least.
I woke late the next morning and stretched, disentangling limbs and stray bed sheets. Daylight flooded the room from the small window above the bed and warm streaks of sunlight bathed our legs in warmth from the waist down. Elizabeth lay on her side in a deep peaceful sleep. Lifting the hair away from her face, I watched her for a few minutes. Even though we were together now, and free, I couldn’t help but add the image to my mental museum of beautiful stills of her. She moaned lightly, still asleep, and rolled to her back, the last of the quilt sliding off the side of the bed. I took my time appreciating the sight, my eyes rolling down her slowly until they stopped on the dark scar across her lower stomach, and I frowned. Lightly touching the thick line, I felt her hand rest on my head.
“Does it bother you?” she asked in a rough morning voice.
“No,” I said, my eyes on the scar. “Not that you have it, only that they did it.” I ran my hand slowly across her stomach to her waist and then around the soft curve of her hip and thigh, resting my head on her stomach. Her stomach growled loudly in my ear and I laughed.
“Hungry?” I asked. “I’ll make us something to eat,” I said before she had a chance to answer. I sat up and immediately felt her hands on my shoulders, pulling me back down. Only a few seconds into the kiss, we both recoiled from each other’s foul morning breath, laughing.
“Okay, maybe you should make breakfast,” she said with a giggle.
I slipped my pants on and walked out to the living area. Our dinner dishes were scattered, and the last of the stew had gone bad in the black pot hanging on a hook in the center of the fireplace. Digging around for the last of the embers from the night before, I noticed there wasn’t enough firewood for breakfast and slipped my coat on to fetch more and to use the outhouse.
I opened the door, and the cold winter morning air caught in my throat. I froze, prickly fear running down my spine, as I saw the small basket of eggs and brown paper package beside it, then looked up and around in panic. The neglected lawn in front of the cabin lay frozen, undisturbed, and I could see no impressions of footprints on the frost covered wooden porch. I stood in the open doorway, chilly winter air filling the cabin, watching and listening for any sign of someone being near. Not that we would have any time to do anything about it, I thought. Elizabeth came up behind me with her arms wrapped around herself, shivering.
“Why are you standing there with the door open?” she asked.
“Shhh!” I hissed, not fully turning toward her. She quickly sidled up next to me and saw the gift on the porch.
“Daddy must have left these,” she said casually and bent to pick them up. I almost stopped her, thinking it a trap. She opened the paper and smiled. “Bacon,” she said, holding it up to me. I tried to return the smile.
“He shouldn’t have taken the chance of coming down here, Elizabeth. We should leave as soon as we’re done eating.” I didn’t wait for her to object, I wouldn’t let her this time. I closed the door behind me and walked nervously to the outhouse, scanning the landscape as I went.
Coming out, I heard a noise behind me and whirled around to see a beautiful tan doe foraging for something in the thin woods beside the outhouse. I let out a relieved breath and watched her for a moment until her ears twitched nervously, and she looked up at me with wide eyes. She suddenly bounded three long leaps into the woods and disappeared. I began walking toward the house and without warning, the whole world went black.
I saw dark swirling storm clouds, howling icy wind and small light snow began falling. I heard search dogs in the distance and deep voices yelling. My heart bounded with fear as I watched myself being hunted by men with guns. I saw Elizabeth’s eyes in front of me, wide with fear, wet with sadness, her mouth open in a scream I couldn’t hear. Felt my arms nearly ripped from their sockets as they pulled me away from her, and I fought violently.
I came to sitting on the cold ground just as Elizabeth stepped outside the door to look for me. She ran over, barefooted and shivering, and pulled at my arm. I was tired and dizzy, but I stood and wobbled to the cabin and collapsed onto the couch.
“We have to leave today,” I said breathlessly, rubbing my aching eyes.
She nodded, frightened. “What did you see?”
“I saw them finding us. Hunting us. There was a storm though.” I paused to look out the window at the clear blue sky, dotted with occasional billows of white clouds. “I think it will be tomorrow. We have to be far away from here by tomorrow.”
“We will be,” she said, nodding furiously. “We’ll leave right after dinner.” She kissed and hugged me briefly before turning to the fireplace to start breakfast.
A few minutes later, I crouched in front of the fire, slowly adding smaller logs and pushing around the glowing embers. I heard her yawn behind me and I smiled to myself.
“I guess we didn’t get much sleep last night, did we?” I turned with a sly grin, and she blushed deeply to the tips of her ears.
“No, we didn’t,” she said, holding my gaze. “We should take a nap before we go,” she suggested, though the twisted smile on her lips suggested anything but sleep.
I turned back to the fireplace, still smiling and ran my fingers through my messy morning hair, leaving it worse than before I touched it.
We ate breakfast quietly, not because of embarrassment or awkwardness, but simply being comfortable enough with each other to have long periods of silence, lost in our own thoughts and occasionally looking up to smile at the other, eager t
o start our lives far from here.
We cleaned up from breakfast, occasionally stopping to share a kiss or erupt in a giggling outburst of gratuitous groping. When she caught her breath, and the giggles had subsided, she pecked me on the cheek.
“I’m going to go bathe,” she said. I watched her go into the bedroom with a pot of hot water, closing the door behind her.
I busied myself, gathering things from around the cabin and packing David’s bag full up with supplies we would need. The cabin was enveloped in silence, and I heard one of the floorboards creak in the bedroom. Unable to resist, I opened the door a crack, unashamedly peeking in. She stood naked in front of the washstand, holding a soapy cloth under her chin. She looked at me in the mirror and smiled unashamedly back at me. Peeling off my shirt as I walked toward her, I tossed it onto the bed and reached around her for the cloth. She leaned her head forward, moving her hair and I washed her back slowly, occasionally dipping the cloth into the hot water. Small trails of water ran down her back and legs as I squeezed the cloth over her shoulders and kissed her neck. She reached for the cloth, but I held it out of her reach until she dropped her arm, and she watched me curiously in the mirror. I bathed her hips and legs slowly, my free hand following the cloth over the slick contours of her body before turning her to face me. She watched me without any describable expression. The water was cool by the time she took the cloth from me, having taken my time bathing her, but I barely noticed the chill as she began to do the same for me. She didn’t turn me around, but slid wet arms around my waist and washed my chest from behind, planting light kisses along my shoulders and back. One hand bathed while the other explored, feeling the swells and creases of every muscle in my chest and arms. When she did turn me around, she dropped the cloth onto the floor with a soggy plop and pushed me back toward the bed with a demanding kiss.
