“Why is your heart beating so fast?” she whispered as she laid a palm on my chest. “Aren’t you tired?”
“I’m…” I cleared my throat, nervous. “No, not really.”
She paused, her breath held. “Did I… should I not be here? I thought…”
“Hmm?” My voice cracked.
Erata sat up suddenly, breaking away from me. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have. I didn’t mean to make everything such a… a… mess, I guess. I thought it would be all right to…”
The woman made as little sense to me as a toddler’s babbling. “To what?” I sat up, frustrated, my shoulder brushing hers. “I’ve no idea what you expect from me, Erata. I can’t read your thoughts. Whatever it is, please just tell me. After a month of your visits, I’d appreciate knowing what it is you want from me, because I haven’t any idea.”
“I like you a lot,” she blurted out.
She liked me? What the devil did that mean? Of course she liked me, why else would she spend every night talking to me?
I heard her swallow. “Do you… do you like me, Lukas?”
My eyebrows pulled together. “Of course I do. I’d think that was obvious.”
“But… is that all?”
I recognized the uncertainty in her voice immediately. It was such a drastic difference to her normal confidence, it was impossible to mistake for anything else. Was Erata… scared?
“What are you asking me, exactly?”
She let out a long, quiet sigh. “If I tell you something, do you promise not to laugh?”
“I promise.”
Her knees pulled up as she bent forward to rest her head. “I remember hearing fairy stories when I was little, stories that talked about kisses like they were some great magic. I thought it was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. People give kisses away like they’re table scraps. If they’re so powerful, why would they do that?”
“Erata—”
“I’m not finished.”
I stifled a chuckle. “Sorry. Go on.”
“Anyway, so that was what I used to think. I thought that way for twenty years, until I saw, with my own eyes, what those stories were talking about. That kind of kiss isn’t a normal, throwaway kiss. The kiss I saw was the most amazing thing anyone anywhere could ever hope to glimpse. It was more powerful than death. It was beautiful and breathtaking, but…”
Her silence dragged on for several moments, and I prompted her to continue. “But what?”
“Do you think…” She took a deep breath and turned toward me. “Do you think other people get to have kisses like that?”
I wasn’t so dumb as not to understand what she wanted from me then, although my hesitation remained. I wasn’t practiced in that particular skill, and knowing how high her expectations were didn’t really instill confidence in me.
Slowly, I lifted a hand to her, first finding her shoulder, trailing up to her neck as her breathing hitched. My thumb traced the line of her jaw, her cheek, until my fingers came to rest in her soft hair behind her ear. Praying silently to the spirits that I didn’t miss, I leaned in, finding her warm lips with my own.
It wasn’t a kiss to defy death, but more than enough to encourage her response. Her hand rested against my face, then the back of my neck, our embrace heating from tentative to blazing in a matter of moments. She tasted of something sweet, with the barest touch of mint. Everything about her, about me, was alive then, but I forced our parting, needing air as much as I needed…
I pushed back, breaking my contact with her completely.
“What…” she panted, out of breath. “What’s the matter?”
I scrubbed a hand over my face and through my hair. “This solitude makes us desperate, Erata. No matter how lonely we are, we can’t mistake that for… for…” A heavy sigh escaped me. “I won’t turn you into a substitute for what I’ve given up. I won’t be yours, either. If this, if I, am all there ever is for you, how can you be sure I’m the right person? I don’t want to be the one you settled for because there was no one else. You shouldn’t want that from me, either.”
“You think me so desperate that I’d be willing to settle for anyone?” she asked, her voice tight. “You think I’d make this choice so lightly?”
My hands flopped to my lap, at a loss for what to do with them. “I honestly don’t know, Erata. You’ve made it clear that you won’t tell me a thing about yourself, even so little as how long you’ve been here or why. Why would you give all of yourself to someone you don’t trust enough to share that much with? I’ve seen the effects of extreme solitude on the mind. It causes people to make choices they never would under normal circumstances.”
She sucked in a ragged breath. “You… You think me addled? All because I’d choose you over anyone else I might have?” Her weight shifted and her feet hit the floor with a thump.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Perhaps I should listen to you, then,” she said, stomping around the bed. “Because I would never ‘settle’ for someone who thought so little of me… and himself.”
The door whooshed open and slammed closed, her exit immediately filling me with sick misery. My words hadn’t been meant to insult, only to encourage consideration. How could I explain? She’d all but confessed to deep feelings for me, and I’d unintentionally dismissed them as possible delusion.
Only once in my life had I felt as low as I did that night, and the other still haunted me with irreparable consequences. Was my misstep with Erata going to be as unforgivable?
* * * * *
For six nights, I laid in bed alone, wondering if she would ever visit again. Given her desperation and my promise, I feared the worst for a lonely fate, and my preoccupation showed in everything I did. My reading to the elk was unfocused, my thoughts wandering midway through paragraphs as my voice trailed off without finishing sentences. After an hour of that, the elk lost her patience and blew the book closed.
“Tell me…”
I blinked at her from my spot beneath the tree, surprised by the cover slamming shut. “Tell you what?”
“What troubles you…”
Cursing myself for being so distracted, I sighed and tried to think of a way around the truth. Perhaps, as a magical creature, the elk might have some good advice or words of wisdom for me. But how to ask without giving away Erata? Addressing the heart of the matter, the largest question might give the most helpful answer.
“Do you know anything about love?”
Her neck straightened, jerking her head back slightly as her ears pitched forward with keen interest. “Love?”
“Yes. I could use some advice, if you have any.”
“What is the question?”
I studied my hands, noting every line and callous. All my life, I’d spent my days crafting, chopping, hunting, preparing. Abstract ideas weren’t things I had a great use for, though my mother always encouraged it. “How can a person be sure it’s love they feel?”
“If you’re staying as you’ve asked, what need do you have for the answer?”
I grimaced. “I’m speaking in general. With all of the stories we’ve read, there’s always this theme. True love. Love conquers all. Love saves. And it’s always such a quick thing, almost overnight. Even assuming there’s a good amount of leniency to the reality of it, even the simplest stories have grains of truth in them. Is it possible that such swift certainty in emotions does happen? Is there a way to know?”
“Like a test…”
Setting the book to the side, I leaned back and stared up into the branches. “I suppose, but how can you test yourself without being swayed by your feelings?”
“Perhaps that’s the true test…” She shook her head slightly, relaxing. “When feelings overpower all else…”
“I’d think having your heart make all of your decisions would be disastrous,” I said. “It’s actually a little terrifying to think of. Hearts don’t follow instructions. In my experience, that’s a sure recipe for getting yourself
or others killed.”
The elk rested her head on her good leg and closed her eyes. “Love cares only for another. When you love, all that matters is the safety of others. Is that not already how people on the mountain live, though?” she asked. “They rely on one another to survive…”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
Frowning, it was difficult to explain. Knowing that it was different was easy. Expressing the difference was confounding. “That’s done out of necessity.”
“As is the other…” she said. “Love isn’t a choice you make. It finds you…”
“That sounds more like a curse than the blessing stories speak of.”
She looked up at me, her clear blue eyes serene. “It can be, but it comes with the greatest rewards in the world…”
To be so out of control of myself was not an idea I cared for. Perhaps much of life contained an illusion of choice, but it was a necessary illusion. “How does lack of choice make you happy? I don’t see the sense in it.”
She sighed. “There is always a choice. It’s the consequences of those choices that decide whether or not they’re options. You had a choice to come here, didn’t you?”
“Not really,” I grumbled. The elk looked at me with unspoken reproach, and I relented. “Fine. Yes, I might’ve said no, but lost my mother’s regard in doing so.”
“The consequences were unacceptable to you. You did have a choice…”
Crossing my arms, I shrugged. “Point conceded.”
“Love is the same. It is the consequence of being without the other person we find unacceptable…”
Her explanation made more sense than I wanted to admit, but that was my own stubbornness. “So, you say a person can know if it’s love if the possibility of living without the other is more painful than any other choice?”
“Yes…”
Erata’s absence of only a few days certainly had taken its toll, but how could I tell if that was due to lack of any other company, or her alone? The elk’s words were wise indeed, but my circumstances didn’t allow for any way to test the idea. All I knew was that I missed Erata terribly, possibly more so than the family that raised me. But, like most things in the elk’s home, that left me with more questions than answers.
* * * * *
For thirty more days I suffered in silence. Each night without her drove the hurt deeper. After another week, I thought perhaps my longing would turn into anger, despising her for abandoning me so abruptly when I’d given up so much for her sake, but my thoughts of her hurt, rather than stirred my temper. Even the notion that perhaps Erata betrayed me, tricking me into my promise by preying on my guilt… not even that fostered my ill will. Each time I considered it, I easily found a way to explain her absence. Magic infused everything in the elk’s home, perhaps something happened to keep her from me. One moment I could convince myself she was a devious temptress, but even the creak of my bed frame as I shifted in sleep made my heart race that it might be her returning at last.
I couldn’t hate her no matter how hard I tried.
When I did sleep, my dreams were haunted with strange visions. Seven girls, sisters, appeared to me behind my closed eyes. Their faces were obscured, blurred beyond recognition, and I could never remember them when I woke. What remained, however, was the depth of the bond they shared. Hardships and loss never diminished the love they had for one another. While I couldn’t see their faces, I could tell them apart, strangely enough. Each had her own unique beauty, but only one held my attention without fail. She was different from the other six: loving as deeply as the others, yet detached from them, standing to one side and searching for… Something. She longed for more than the boundaries of her family life, but seemed as lost as a child in a dense fog. She was sharp-witted and quick-tempered, but fiercely loyal. For all the sisters, no matter what passed between them, they remained dedicated to one another.
When the sister that most intrigued me disappeared from my dreams, I struggled to make sense of it. There was no explanation for her absence, she simply wasn’t there. The others mingled in a palace of finery, their whispered discussions mostly indiscernible, but a few words came through. East… West… Sun… Moon… Trade… Trickery… All with a frantic tone in their hushed concerns.
The dreams vanished as suddenly as they began. A deep unease settled into my bones. I was missing something, but there was no sense to any of it.
My hopes for Erata’s return dimmed when the dreams stopped. A shadow descended over me, my malaise impossible to hide. I continued to read to the elk, but the stories didn’t fascinate me anymore. The tales slipped over my tongue with little more than apathy.
The elk had healed enough to stand on her own, hoisting herself to her feet with large gusts of wind. Soon, she’d have no need for that, either. It was a slight victory knowing I’d kept at least that promise with good results. I couldn’t say so much for the other.
We were much closer after so long together. When I read, she would lay beside me, her head across my lap as I stroked the soft fur atop her head. Other times, I rested against her, book held for us both to see, as we did whenever there were illustrations accompanying the stories. At first her companionship eased the pain of being without Erata, but even that small comfort dimmed. When the dreams of the sisters stopped, nothing brought me joy.
She lifted her head and nudged my shoulder. “It’s time to discuss things…” Her voice whispered past my ears.
“Is it?” I murmured as I stroked the cover of the book we’d finished moments before.
“Your light fades, Lukas… Perhaps you should go…”
I jerked, sitting upright as though she’d stabbed me. “Go? Go where?”
The elk looked away, toward the door back into the house. “Home…”
The thought made me ill. “Absolutely not. I can’t.”
“Why not?” she asked, her eyes finding me again, head tilted in curiosity. “My leg has healed, and you’re unhappy…”
A twinge of anger sent me to my feet. “You said I could stay. Have you changed your mind? Why? What have I done to displease you?”
She shook her head. “You’re unhappy, Lukas… I know you miss them…”
I balked. “Miss who?”
“Your family…”
I opened my mouth to argue, but shut it abruptly. In my preoccupation with Erata, I’d nearly forgotten about my family. Could that be right? I missed a woman I barely knew so much that it completely dwarfed my ache for those I’d known my whole life?
It is the consequence of being without the other person we find unacceptable…
The elk’s advice rang in my ears, deafening me to anything else she might’ve said. I stared off into the distance, dazed by sudden realization. It seemed impossible, yet there it was: the undeniable truth of it all.
I was in love with Erata.
She was stranger, a woman I’d lived without far longer than I’d known, yet the thought of continuing on without her constricted my lungs, my heart beating wildly in my chest. Go home? How could I even consider it? Even elsewhere, I’d spend every night listening for her, searching the darkness for her hand.
“I won’t go,” I whispered.
“Lukas…”
“I won’t!” My hands balled into fists at my side as I stared down the elk. “All that I’ll ever need is contained in the walls of this place, and I won’t be parted from it. Would you kill me to see me gone? You’ll have to. Until my last breath, I won’t leave—” I stopped myself, nearly speaking her name aloud. “I won’t leave. Not of my own free will.”
The breeze stilled, not so much as a leaf stirring as I stared into the elk’s crystalline blue gaze. A tear formed in her eyes, gathering and rolling down the white fur of her face like a brilliant, sparkling gem. The beauty of it quieted some of my rage, and my shoulders eased as I relaxed my hands. I sank to my knees before her, desperate.
“Please, I beg you. Don’t make me go. After all th
at’s happened, what I’ve come to know, I’ll never be happy without…” I stumbled again, near to bursting with my need to tell Erata how I felt. “I miss my family, yes, but it’s a pain I can live with. A life outside of what’s here would be hollow for me. Please.”
Shaky, the elk got to her feet and approached. Her neck bent towards me, she touched her forehead to mine. Her voice swirled around us, a reply filled with emotions I couldn’t comprehend. “I’m sorry I upset you. If you’re happy here…”
I threw my arms around her neck. “Thank you! I swear I’ll be better now. I’ve felt half-mad for weeks, but I think it’ll pass. I hope…” I took a deep breath and pulled away. “I’m sorry. I haven’t slept much lately, either. Do you have that problem?”
“Can’t sleep?”
I shrugged. “That, but when I do, I’ve had the strangest dreams lately. Dreams about people I don’t know, always the same women.”
“Nightmares?”
Shaking my head, I sat back on the grass. “Not really, no, though not all of them are pleasant. They’re more like…” I scoured my brain for the right word. “More like memories. Someone else’s, in fact. I always see them from far away, like looking through a blurred spyglass. Some of the people change, but those seven are always the same, though it became six at the last. Am I raving? I feel like I don’t make any sense at all.”
Her posture stiffened, her ears tuned back, as if listening to distant sounds. “You aren’t raving, Lukas…” she said. “I do suspect outside interference, however.”
Blinking at her, that made even less sense than my ramblings. “Outside interference? But how—”
She turned away and headed for the door, limping slightly. “I’ll see it’s taken care of…”
Ride the Wind: A Flipped Fairy Tale (Flipped Fairy Tales Book 3) Page 8
