Chapter 3 #2
Nathan shrugged. “We’ll see as soon as we find a lighter or matches.
When the gas runs out, we’ll organize a few new bottles.
” He came over to me. “Adventurers, sometimes nature photographers, settle in empty Cajun houses from time to time. Now and then, they stay longer and bring more supplies than they can take back with them later. We’ll see what we can discover in the surrounding shacks tomorrow. ”
“Found shitter,” Pan suddenly reported, his voice seeming to come from below.
This time, I didn’t flinch at his crude choice of words; I had long since gotten used to that.
“It’s downstairs. Shit falls straight into the swamp.
” He noisily ascended a narrow staircase that led to the bathroom through the last room, apparently the bedroom.
“In this epic breadth, we didn’t need to know,” Icarus groaned, who was rummaging through a dusty cupboard with Troy for candles and matches.
Shivering, I rubbed my arms even though it wasn’t cold.
It was summer in Louisiana, late June, which meant that the temperature rarely dropped below seventy degrees even at night, but the fear of Isaac was still in my bones.
The trip and nature had distracted me from the fear, but I felt it deep down, miles deep, enormous, hidden behind the new impressions.
I went to the porch again and peered out the windows at the shimmering red pool. “Nathan?”
“Willa?” He came to me and his scent filled my nose. Sea salt still clung to him, but he also smelled of fresh sweat, a bitter, sensual smell that made me want him to kiss me again. “Am I safe from him here?” I asked quietly. “Are you the only one who knows this place?”
“Yes.” His voice sounded darker than usual. “Isaac has never been here and none of the others were either. I promise.”
I smiled with relief, and when he looked at me, there was a deep sparkle in his eyes.
Timidly, he raised his hand and touched the swollen part of my face with his fingertips.
It hurt, but I remained still because the touch was gentle and comforting.
It triggered a warmth in me that filled me from head to toe, made me completely happy even though everything around me was in chaos; even though I no longer knew what I wanted or where I belonged; even though I was so scared.
We stood like that for several breaths, caught up in the contact, unable to stop looking at each other. Then, abruptly, Nathan dropped his hand as if he were forbidden to touch me.
He hastily backed away a yard and folded his arms. “I’m sorry about what happened, Will.”
“I know,” I whispered. Outside, the last red of dusk gave way to the blackness of the night.
My heart was aching. I wanted his touch.
I needed his closeness. I wanted to shake him and shout at him to hold me, kiss me, and do whatever else he wanted to do with me.
A small part of me even believed that he owed me that as a kind of compensation, but of course, that was nonsense.
I had no right to him especially if his story were true.
“You are a brave girl,” he said quietly now. “Stronger and braver than I believed. And you have a good heart.”
I swallowed. “Pan says that about you—having a good heart.” He was so beautiful standing there in the last black light.
Shadows on his face and sadness in his eyes.
Inaccessibility on every inch of his skin.
A man without dreams. But that wasn’t true.
He had dreams, he merely hid them well because he was afraid of them.
He had told me that he wanted to be closer to me than was good for him.
I blinked and he was still looking at me, his arms crossed, the distance an invisible wall around his body.
At that moment, I wanted him completely.
I felt a strange longing inside me that was driving me crazy.
It burned, blazed, and shimmered like a thousand fiery sparks in my chest. I wanted to mean something to him, I wanted to be everything to him, and at the same time, I was so afraid that he would never let me get close enough to him for that.
That I would never leave an imprint on him that was deep enough for him to remember.
That he would forget me at some point after all this.
I had to turn away because my stomach was knotted like a rock, and after a few anxious heartbeats in which I looked out the window and hoped for the impossible, he turned and returned to the others.
I stared at the black pool sleeping in the darkness.
I had never felt so torn, so happy, and so lonely at the same time, so vulnerable and scared.
So far from home. And beneath all these feelings, I still felt the deeply hidden magic of this place.
The secret that it did not reveal. It was like a distant song in my mind, a rhythm, like arms that held me tightly and rocked me.
Up and down. Again and again. There was a deep, honest love, a groan of old wood, and the smell of dark green water.
Nevertheless, all of this was simply a feeling that turned into these images.
Nothing tangible. And yet it seemed fateful to have ended up here in the bayous, in the place that I had painted on the walls of my room since I was a little girl.
The next day was so busy that I forgot about the magic of the place.
I dusted and cleaned the hut as best I could with a tattered sponge and dishcloth.
However, I had no experience in cleaning, so Nathan had Pan help me after I poured half of the precious cleaning product into the even more precious water.
In fact, Pan always stuck to me. I suspected it was a precautionary measure because of Sparta and Nathan confirmed my suspicion when I was able to briefly speak to him alone.
“Kjertan is the only one I truly trust even if I don’t suspect Ian or Noah.
Stanton remains on the blacklist since I suspect that he passed on the coordinates.
Nevertheless, I don’t want you to go anywhere alone with any of the three, understand? ”
It was pointless to consider who from the former crew, other than Sparta, had wanted to get rid of me, but my thoughts kept circling the topic.
I often came back to Ilias because of his size, but Pan swore to me that his twin would never have harmed a hair on my head for his sake alone.
Ilias knew how much Pan liked me. And they usually agreed, and when Pan liked someone, Ilias agreed and vice versa.
Basically, it could have been anyone, but the hobbits were ruled out—they were much too small. There was no point in thinking about it.
It took at least three weeks for us to settle in.
We searched the surrounding shacks, some of which were scattered far and wide on the promontory, for anything we could use.
We found a few patchwork blankets, matches, worn-out mattresses, half a sack of pasta, a sack of rice, some “canned food”—as Icarus disparagingly called it—and a change of clothes.
Nathan even found a pair of old ankle-high lace-up boots for me, but in size seven, which was two sizes too big for me.
“My goodness, Will! No one has such tiny Cinderella feet! Can’t something be normal about you?” he commented, half amused, half annoyed, but we managed with the knitted socks we had found in the rickety hut.
Nathan had taken out the motorboat on the second day, taking only Icarus with him.
When they returned six hours later, they had used his last dollars to load the boat with missing supplies: more canned food, fruit and fresh vegetables, flour and spices, gas for the stove, needed tools, sanitary pads and tampons, a charger for Nathan’s cell phone, and a generator that could be cranked to generate electricity.
They also had some fever-reducing medicine and antibiotics.
On the one hand, it was scary that the coastal towns were apparently not that far away—after all, Isaac could search for us there—but on the other hand, it was convenient.
At least now I had sanitary pads and tampons in case, even if my period had not been a problem up to that point.
They were irregular anyway, maybe three times a year, a phenomenon that Dr. Moore said was related to my psyche.
But that had always been just fine by me.
The next morning, the men set off in the motorboat to find out if they had reception anywhere in the area. They wanted to check for messages and incoming calls. Naturally, they also wanted to contact Isaac, but no one would admit it, I just thought so.
As they were all traveling together, there was no danger of someone hitting me with a piece of driftwood behind me—if I could believe Nathan.
I was supposed to keep an eye on the basin since he wanted to go with the others to the east side near the floating forest. If necessary, I was to run there and shout loudly.
I watched the men go down to the dock and climb into the boat.
Nathan was wearing black as always, looking like a shadow in the misty air.
Sparta, on the other hand, was pale, ghost-like next to the shadowy Nathan.
Nathan had told me yesterday that he had fungal pneumonia due to his immune deficiency.
Many people he knew had ultimately died from such an infection.
Or from a harmless cold. Both eventually led to high fever.
Organ failure. Death. For some, it was quicker, for others, it dragged on painfully.
I didn’t want to imagine what it would be like if Sparta died here.
Troy and Icarus looked like carefree students next to him.
Icarus wore a wide, colorful coat that we had found on a porch and truly looked like a magician.
Troy had thrown on a brown poncho from the rickety hut and a cowboy hat sat on his head.
They were constantly teasing each other out of boredom, Troy, however, continued not to speak to Sparta and avoided him.