Then everything else vanished in explosions of light and heat. Frieda raised her voice to the treetops, and Deek howled into her ear until he couldn’t keep his legs rigid against the tree anymore. They sank to the ground in harmonized groans and fell into unconscious bliss.
Frieda’s eyes hovered half open. Waves of energy sparkled over her skin and through her body as if every tissue sizzled with independent life. For a moment, she could believe she dissolved in water, and her cells floated away in a diffuse cloud to the limits of the ocean.
The wind turned cold, and Frieda shivered. Deek stirred on top of her, but neither moved. Frieda blinked up at the sky. The sun slipped behind the canopy, and the shadows deepened. Deek sighed and shifted on top of her. Then he cleared his throat.
“Do you have to go?” she asked.
“I don’t have anywhere to go but home,” he replied.
Frieda let out a shaky breath. Home—where was that? Was it her little house, or was it the family house in the village? What difference did it make? One was as home as the other. She no longer cared where she went.
Deek murmured into her ear. “Come with me.”
She blinked, and her vision cleared. “Where?”
He pulled back and studied her. “I’m going to the village. I’m going to my family. Come back to the village and stay there with me.”
Her cells congealed once again into a body she could inhabit. “I’ll come. I'll come anywhere with you.”
He stared at her, but didn’t respond. Then he buried his face in her neck again with a long sigh. The heat of their union dissipated and left them cold. They clung to each other for warmth, but the cold came from inside them, from being separated. “We should go soon.”
She ran her fingers into his hair, “Let’s go.” But they made no move to get up.
He held himself still against her chest and waited. When he finally spoke, his voice quivered. “Are you sure?”
She pushed him back and gazed deep into his eyes. “I’m sure. Let’s go. I want to.”
He rose on his elbows to give her room to get up. She wriggled back into her pants. How coarse and unwieldy they were. The Aqinas’ white gown was much more practical and comfortable. She would have to find one for herself.
Deek got to his feet, too, and they set off through the forest. Frieda slipped her hand into his and smiled at him when he raised his eyebrows. Everything was right. Nothing could spoil her certain solidity of mind. She’d found her place at last.
When they emerged from the forest, the sun broke through the treetops once again and warmed Frieda through. She raised her face to the sky and drank in the beauty of the meadow with its smell of flowers. She cast her eye back toward her little house, but it no longer called to her. Her home was elsewhere, with Deek.
“Do you want to stop by and pick anything up?” he asked. “What about your sewing? You could bring it with you.”
She shook her head. “I’ll come back for it later.”
They walked on without a word in undisturbed tranquillity. Frieda caught sight of the village ahead, and her heart laughed in pure joy. No one could ask for a better home or kinder people. What more could life offer but family, and work and comfort?
They rounded the corner of the forest, and Jen came out of her house. Frieda smiled up the hill at her. Then Sasha and Fritz came out of another house. Deek stopped. Frieda looked at him. “What’s the matter?”
He stared up at the village. More people came out of their houses. They joined hands and filed down the hill. More and more people took their places at the end of the line until hundreds of people, from every doorway, descended the hill and passed Deek and Frieda. Frieda stared at them. The front of the line turned the corner and disappeared into the meadow. More and more people, people she didn’t recognize, flooded the village byways and joined the procession.
Frieda could barely choke out a whisper.
Marian Tee
Tori Kiss
Veronica Henry
Lynda La Plante
D. H. Sidebottom
Sue Margolis
Randall Wallace
Roman Gitlarz
MAGGIE SHAYNE
Randy Wayne White