7. June
June
G azing out of the window, I can hear the distant rush of the river a few hundred yards or so from the cabin. But, instead of soothing me like it has these last couple of weeks, it thrums in my brain, a painful tune I don’t know if I am ready to acknowledge.
I don’t know what it is, but the river has been going around and around my head all day – all night, too, dreams of dipping below the water filling my head.
When I woke up next to Elias, his body tangled around mine as I had grown used to, I wondered, for a moment, if I was just fooling myself, being out here.
I can hear the rhythmic sound of Elias chopping wood outside, and I wish, for a second, that he was here beside me.
In the midst of all this madness, his presence has felt like the one thing I can cling on to, his strong arms, his rough hands, his sly sense of humor.
I never thought that I’d find so much in common with a man like him, but it turns out there is more drawing us together than pulling us apart.
We both live alone, both pursue our own lives, both go without family or any real connections. At least, until I stumbled into his life.
But the more time that passes, the more I wonder if I am just fooling myself staying here. And if the novelty of having someone like me around is starting to wear off.
I rise to my feet and head to the door, pushing it open and gazing down the path that leads to the river.
When I first arrived, I would never have been able to pick it out, but now that I have learned the intricacies of this place, I can see it as clear as day.
I shoot a look back towards the spot I left Elias at work, and then gather my skirts in one hand and start towards the river.
It’s calling to me. I can feel it, hear it in my head, even when I try to deny myself.
If it’s that mysterious power that brought me here, I need to know if it will take me back.
Could it be that I’ve just been dropped here for a short time, and my other life is waiting for me back where I left it. ..?
I don’t know if anyone would even notice that I have gone.
I mean, sure, I have the blog audience, but they’ll just find someone else to fill the gap if I go inactive for a while.
My mom isn’t here anymore, and I don’t have any regular friends, beyond the people I encounter for a night or two on the road.
But doubts nag at me as I make my way towards the river, slipping on a couple of rocks, still trying to find my feet.
Is it too much, the fantasy of this place?
Living here full-time, it’s not going to be this giddy excitement of newness all the way through, no.
I have to accept that this could be my life now.
The aspects I imagine other modern women having a hard time with — no electricity, having to keep the fire going and cooking everything from scratch — I got used to living off grid while being in my van. It’s honestly liberating …
The hardest part is asking more of Elias than he’s prepared to give by staying here...
I reach the water’s edge, and it glistens in the cool sunlight just like it did the day I slipped under the river’s surface and found myself breaking water in this time period.
I skim my fingers over the top, sending a cascade of ripples outward, not entirely sure what I am looking for.
A reflection of my old self? My time, the place I came from, staring back at me?
For the rushing in my ears to grow a little less insistent. ..?
I glance back towards the cabin, which is almost out of sight now.
I doubt he will have even noticed that I am gone.
But I’ve seen the way people look at me in town, I know my language and the way I carry myself is far from anything they’ve seen before.
If I stay, I won’t just be an outcast myself.
I could make him one, too. I don’t know if I can drag him down with me, I don’t know if it’s fair.
I turn my attention back to the water, and, before I can talk myself out of it, I reach back to undo the buttons on my dress and let the fabric pool at my feet.
I need to know if I can go back. If it’s even a possibility, at this point. This is where I came from, maybe I can go back...
Even if I am not sure there is anything waiting for me on the other side.
I close my eyes, and dive beneath the water, letting the rush of cold fill my senses.
It invades every part of me, almost stinging with how freezing it is, but I hold my breath and force myself deeper, deeper, back to the pool that drew me here in the first place.
I wait to feel that same tingle that I did before, the sense that something has changed around me, but nothing comes.
I clench my fists and squeeze my eyes, kicking against the flow of the water under my feet, trying to keep myself afloat, but I can already feel the pressure getting the better of me.
I go to claw my way upward, trying to catch a breath, but the current keeps me down.
Panic pulses through me, and I reach for the surface again, my hands groping uselessly towards the sun that beams through the water above.
Oh, God. I am stuck.
Why did I do this?
No matter what kind of mystical properties this place might hold, it’s still a river after a storm, the water flowing furiously as it bulges against the banks.
My feet grope for the bottom so I can push myself up and catch a breath, but nothing happens, nothing changes.
The darkness nags at the corner of my vision, the last of the air in my lungs bubbling out before me, and I realize that I don’t want to go. I can’t.
Not now I have found Elias, this man who makes me feel things that I have never felt before – this man who, though he’s from another time, seems to understand me better than anyone else I’ve ever met...
Just as the blackness threatens to close in entirely, something breaks through the surface of the water. It takes me a moment to recognize what it is, but then, it hits me – a hand.
His hand.
I’d recognize it anywhere, just the same way I had recognize his touch on me even in the darkest night. I force my hand upwards, and, at last, our fingers come together, his hand locking around mine as he pulls me out of the water.
I draw in a helpless gasp of air, and he loops his arms around me, pulling me on to him as the two of us fall backwards on to the bank. All I can hear for a moment is the blood rushing in my head, and then, at last, the sound of his voice cuts through it.
"What the hell were you doing?” he demands, as he pushes my sodden hair back from my face to look me in the eyes. "Why did you...?"
I feel tears prick my eyes, mixing with the droplets of water still clinging to my cheeks. My nails dig in to his strong arms, making sure he is really there, making sure I am not going to lose him.
"I’m sorry," I breathe. "I – I had to know if the river...if it would take me away..."
I can’t imagine what he makes of such a statement, but he doesn’t show his confusion on his face as he cups my head in his hands and gazes into my eyes.
"June," he growls, voice laced with a sincerity that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. "You think I want this river to take you? You think I want you to leave?”
He grabs me by the back of the neck and pulls me into a kiss so intense that it knocks what little air there was left in my lungs from my body. And I grasp for him, for dear life, for anything I can get, this man who pulled me from the river and saved my life.
In more ways than one.
And, as he pushes me down on to the bank, my naked body against the cool earth, I know that he will claim me again. To prove to me, once and for all, that I belong to him – that I belong here, no matter how hard it might be for me to believe.
Our mouths crash together again, the passion between us more intense than the rush of the river beneath us. And, as he fills me, I know that nothing will take me away from him again.
Nothing could. Whatever spell brought me here, it won’t take me back.
Because this is where I belong. In his arms.