8. America
AMERICA
T he drive is quiet, I expect to follow Runa in my Mazda, but she ends up hitching my car to the back of her truck instead so I can ride with her and Chewie.
I get to sit pressed against her, opting to lift up the middle console and use its seat in the cabin so I can be as close as humanly possible.
I drift off around the third hour of the trip, it’s only when she pulls into a gas station to fuel up that I wake, the rising sun coming up behind us in the rearview mirror.
“We’re close,” Runa tells me, a big smile on her face. “Pick out whatever snacks you want for the next day or so, we’ll come back into town once we’ve cleared out the overgrown nightshades around the property.”
“Probably best to keep them,” I tell her. “We can learn to coexist with them, it’s the intruders who should be wary.”
Her smile reaches all the way up to her eyes. “That’s what Lessa would say, my mentor,” she explains with a sad shrug.
“Seems like she cared about you a lot, to leave it to you.” I squeeze her hand before we exit the car together.
“Hmm,” Runa hums, staring out into the road.
Picking out road trip snacks is the most normal thing we could be doing right now, even though I know there’s likely already a small but quiet search team trying to find me.
He’ll give up once he realizes I’m too far to chase, and I will gladly stay quiet for the sake of my freedom, but he’ll still try and find me at first.
So I pretend for now that snacks are all that matter, realizing how much you can learn about someone just from their taste preferences.
Runa loves ranch-flavored sunflower seeds, but she doesn’t actually like the seeds themselves, she just likes sucking on the shells and spitting them out.
It’s adorably gross, but when I think about the environmental impact of her spitting the little seeds out the window as we drive, planting sunflowers on the side of the road like a bird, I almost wonder if this is what love feels like.
I’m sure this must be it.
She squeezes my hand back, like she knows I need the reminder that she’s here, to take me out of all the worries in my head.
It’s only a forty-minute drive from town until we get to the darkest corner of the state, at least twenty miles from the last known street light.
It’s been ages since we’ve passed another car, but Runa shows no sign of being lost, confidently tapping her fingers against the wheel and humming to the song on the radio.
She slows down once we get to a spot where a tree grows tall with no branches, three more pass on our right, identically carved like the previous one before Runa takes a right turn into the forest. There was a path once here, now overgrown by thick grass, bushes, and fallen branches.
“It was my full-time home until she died, it was too painful to come back alone. When I found the space to rent and start The Portal, I started using the storage room as a bedroom. I planned to spend my summers here once upon a time, but the employees I had eventually left for college, new witches never applied, and I had no time for vacations anymore. I thought about living here full time again, but the drive was just too long for a daily commute,” she explains, being careful of the turns she takes with my car still towing behind hers.
“What will happen to The Portal now?” I ask, a wave of sadness hitting me, as if I’m feeling Runa’s own emotions.
She gives me an awkward shrug. “The landlord will list it again in a few weeks when I don’t pay the rent at the end of the month. Life will go on.”
I can’t hide my frown. “That doesn’t feel like the right thing.”
“It is.” She takes my hand in hers again to reassure me, “I was miserable, burning at both ends and still not coming up with enough to survive, all for the sake of honoring someone else’s dream.
It wasn’t even my own, Lessa wanted it. I don’t know what’s next for me, but this feels right, with you. ”
“It does, doesn’t it?” I ask, feeling the weight of the statement myself.
The forest begins to clear the deeper we drive into it, a secluded area opening up where a small cottage is covered by overgrown datura vines. “It’s perfect,” I gasp, realizing that just days ago I had wished for this.
Did I manifest that?
“I think I’m a witch too,” I say to Runa just as she puts the car in park.
She laughs, and at first I think she’s making fun of my outrageous claim.
I can’t believe I just told a real witch that I think I’m a witch too.
“Of course you are.” She breaks her laughter to say, “We all have it in us, some hear the calling, some ignore it, but I truly believe at some point in our lives we all get an invitation from the universe.” Runa makes a funny face like she’s thinking about what she’s just said, “Well, maybe not all of us.”
I laugh, the idea that Williams or my father would be taking calls from the universe seeming like a punchline on its own.
“Either way,” she continues, raking her fingers through my hair as she pulls me in for an embrace, “Like attracts like, witches attract other witches, or something of the sort.”
“Or something of the sort.” I lift an eyebrow, staring deeply into her eyes.
She bites her lip. “We have so much to do.”
I sigh, defeated, but knowing she’s right. I at least got a small nap in, she’s been packing all night long and then she drove. “Why don’t you rest for a little and I’ll start?”
She stares unblinking, a suspicious look on her face.
“I’ll start with the bathroom so you can take a bath? Where are the cleaning supplies? Let’s unload Chewie first and then we can figure out where to plant her after your bath.” I’m going a million miles an hour now.
I’m hit with a strong second wind, suddenly reenergized by the need to care for Runa. It surges through me like caffeine in an overwhelming desire to take the weight off her shoulders.
She’s barely unloaded three bags from the truck, sluggishly moving through her exhaustion while I’ve already bleached, dusted, wiped and restocked the entire bathroom.
I’m filling up the tub, sprinkling fresh lavender petals growing from a tree right outside the window into the hot water when she finally gives up. It feels like a small but mighty victory, getting her to relax and let me take over.
The cabin itself is not as bad as she made it seem to be, nothing like in the movies where it’s some abandoned dusty shack covered in cobwebs. It just needed a good wipe, some sweeping, and love. We’ll keep the windows open for the next day or so to air it out and it should be good as new.
It’s perfect and it’s going to be home.
With her.
I find clean blankets and towels packed away in a vacuum sealed bag under the bed, a delightful surprise when everything still has the remnants of dryer sheet smell to them.
She’s out of the tub by the time I’ve finished changing the bedding and lit some candles. A breeze blows in from the open window, the fragrance of fresh linen and wildflowers soothes my nervous system like welcome allies, attempting to dull the growing anxiety.
With my phone left behind it feels like I’m in the dark, waiting for a confrontation that may honestly never happen.
Will he come after me?
Her hair is still damp when it falls over my shoulders, her body pressing up against me from behind as she nuzzles into my neck. “Hmm,” she hums, giving me a squeeze. “This is perfect.”
I can’t help but agree, it hasn’t even been an hour, but just being here, with her … this is freedom.
I’m sure of it.
“Help me unload Chewie from the truck?” Runa’s already got gardening gloves on and she’s dressed in denim overalls.
I follow her lead, undeniably distracted by how good she looks in them.
“Are we planting her?”
“Yes!” She chirps, swinging open the tailgate. “I think the universe is asking for it, don’t you?”
Her smile is brilliant, it’s warm and so full of joy and hope that it eases every tightness still remaining in my chest. I’m enamored with the way she sees things as signs and how her interpretation of those very things determine her day-to-day actions.
She’s intoxicating to be around.
I don’t know if I’ll ever get enough.
“I do.” I whisper my reply, but she’s already on the other side of the truck bed, squatting to grab the edges of the pot.
Scrambling to catch up before she hurts herself by trying to do it alone, I climb the truck and help her. Chewie looks bigger than she did just a few days prior, there’s no way she’s grown in such a short time, but I don’t recall having to tilt my neck up so much to look at her before.
“It’s a good thing, probably,” I wheeze, stepping down little by little, the struggle on both our faces borderline amusing as we try to lift and move this plant. “If we waited any longer she was just gonna have to stay up there.”
Chewbacca makes her gurgling noise, as if protesting my joke to the fullest degree.
Runa laughs, “You’re lucky she’s not a Wookie or she’d tear your arm off for that one.” She comes back to a stand, wiping glistening beads of sweat from her forehead with the back of her arm. “Where do you think?”
I do a full 360-degree spin on my heels, slow, taking my time to scope out the landscape.
“I think right here,” walking only a few feet toward the Southeast corner of the house, I point to the spot in front of the window, “she’ll get tons of full, direct, sunlight, she has space to expand her roots, and we can still see her from our front window. ”
Runa nods, “Plus her trap can still reach the front door, and if anything, that’s a built-in security system on its own.”
I laugh harder than I can control, tilting my head back and making a fool of myself. An awkward embarrassment lingers. Runa notices my discomfort with myself, the way my composure stands and I suddenly want to run away, go home, forget I’ve done any of this.