Adrift (2 page)

Heaven was murky, green, and blue, and dark.

And cold.

I was staring into a young face, a beautiful young girl with wide brown eyes and her heavy hair floating in the water. 

Heaven was under water.

She reached her fingers towards me and, curious, I reached out and touched her.

Gold light swallowed me.

I woke again to find myself wrapped in blankets by a roaring fire.  I reached towards the flames and I could feel the warmth against my fingers.  The narrow bed and the white, rough walls around me did not fit my pre-conceived notion of Heaven, though I had been unaware that I had had any notions of what Heaven would be like.

I reached out to touch one white wall. It felt cool under my fingers, and the grains of the stone were rough through layers of whitewash.

What was this place?

A muffled sound came from one corner and I realized that I was not alone.  A young girl was playing with some kind of toy.  It looked like a top, but with a stick through the top.  She dropped it and it spun around on a piece of yarn.  After a moment I realized that it wasn’t a toy.  She seemed to be making yarn with this odd implement from a puff of some kind of wool she held over her shoulder.  She looked up and met my gaze with a pair of wide, unnervingly wise, brown eyes.

She was almost impossibly pretty, to my eyes, with round, high, apple cheek bones, and a profusion of dark curls tumbling down her back.  Her skin was pale and white, perfect, with roses touching her cheeks and lips.  She looked like a doll come to life.

“Am I… dead?” I heard myself stammer.  “Are you an angel?”

Chapter Two

The girl’s sweet, angelic face, smiled at me with a gaze of non-comprehension.  Her fingers never stopped playing with the cloud of dark fiber over her shoulder, and she cast her spinning spindle down again, creating a long cord of thread, before winding it again.  I watched in fascination, the repeated gesture mesmerizing to me.

Through the cottage window a slant of sunlight drifted across the floor, lighting up particles of dust and setting them to dancing.  I had never suspected that even Heaven had dust, but as I pondered on it, I figured that dust was one of those inescapable things—even in the afterlife.  Birdsong and the gentle song of wind dancing through tree leaves filled the air.  The breeze which wended its way through the window was chill and I wrapped my arms around myself.

Another whistle joined the songs of the birds, then shifted to a different song, one with definite rhythm and cadence.  It was a jaunty tune, full of spring, and jollity.  I turned to smile in wonder at the girl, to share with her the delight I felt at that charming tune.

She was gone.  The cottage was empty.

I started, staring around me at the cracked and darkened walls—the empty fireplace with the fallen timbers shattered across the floor.  The whitewash was darkened and stained by years of rain.

The whistling drew closer, and I went to the doorway, drawn to the sound despite the sudden change it seemed to have brought about in the once-cozy, now dismal, cottage.  The whistler was a slight form, strolling slowly up a dirt road.  The sunlight glinted gold in his otherwise copper hair.  As I watched, he shaded his eyes with one hand, and called out something to me that I didn’t understand.

“I’m sorry?” I stammered.

The figure drew to a stop, looking as astounded as I felt.  After a moment, he drew closer, shaking his head.  “You’ll not be wanting to be around this old place,” a firm voice called to me.  “It’s not safe.”

I shook my head.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know I was trespassing.  I don’t even know how I got here…” I made a useless gesture with one hand.  How to explain that I had drowned, that this was apparently my version of heaven?  Did one actually have to explain things to a dream? 

As the man drew closer, I had more doubts of his angelic origin.  He could be a leprechaun perhaps, but not an angel.  There was a mischievous bend to his lips and his blue eyes had all laugh lines around them, dotted with a fair spattering of light freckles against his ultra-fair skin.  His nose turned up, which would have been cute on a child, but looked rather out of place on his mature face.

“Who are you?” He called, coming nearer, his blue eyes suspicious.  He waded through waist-high green grass to approach.  The blades parted around his legs and around the open-mouthed, joyous face of a golden dog, running at the man’s side.

On reflex, I knelt down and tickled the dog’s ears.  He was a golden lab, the spitting image of my dad’s old companion, though Tipper had died seven years ago.  The dog swiped my chin with a sloppy tongue and I giggled.  I looked up at the man, who had drawn to a halt right before me, and was watching us stoically. 

“I’m Meg,” I told him.  “My name is Meg Tanner.”

“I’m Devin Horan,” He responded.  “What brought you here?”

I sighed, rubbing noses with the friendly dog.  “The sea, I suppose, you could say.”  I told him.

“Kip,” Devin scolded, as the dog licked me again, with enthusiasm.  The dog dropped back a few steps, wagging his high-held tail.  “The sea?” His face was troubled.

“Where am I?” I asked him.  “I’m afraid I’m… lost?”

“Yes,” Devin seemed to bring himself back to attention with an effort.  “Yes, you must be lost.  We are on a small island… the closest town is Trinity.”

“Oh!” I felt a rush of shock.  Part of me had assumed all of this was part of dying, a piece of Heaven.  I watched a piece of dandelion fluff float on the wind and faced my returned mortality.  “I came from Trinity… I’m not sure how I got here.”

Devin scowled.  “Where are you staying, in Trinity?” He made the question a casual one, turning his shoulder, obviously expecting me to follow him.  I fell into stride behind him, running my finger tips through the high grass.

I shrugged.  “I don’t know… I don’t really belong anywhere.”

He turned with a sudden, jerking motion, so fast that I almost ran into him.  His face was troubled, as if I had said something that struck him to the core. 

“What?” He demanded.  “What did you say?”

I shrugged, nonplussed by his reaction.  “I don’t really have a place to go.”  I glanced back at the cottage behind me.   It seemed so dark and empty, a shell where a spirit once had been.  It made me think of my father, lying there, with all that made him real missing.  “What is this place?”

 
I wanted to ask him about the girl, about the change that had happened to the cottage when he appeared, but was afraid that it would sound like the words of a mad-woman.  Perhaps I had dreamt the whole thing.  Somehow, I could not believe that.

Devin started walking again, and I had to stretch my legs to keep up with his long strides.  “This is a very old place,” he said, over his shoulder.  “I’m surprised that you found it… not many people show up around here.”

I broke into a jog and swatted absently at a mosquito gnawing on my leg.  “I didn’t mean to trespass.”

He shrugged.  “Don’t worry about it… I guess I was just… surprised.  It’s not a safe place.”

“But it’s so lovely,” burst from me before I could help myself.

Devin paused, looking back over his shoulder at the old cottage.  “It has its charm,” he said, wryly.  “I don’t know that ‘lovely’ would be the proper term for it.”

“Where are we going?” I demanded, after he continued on, striding at a pace that made it difficult for me to match my strides with his.  The happy golden backside of his dog appeared and disappeared in the grass and trees around us, wagging his fan of a tail and his mouth agape in simple doggy pleasure.

“I’m taking you to my mother’s place,” he said, then smiled at my obvious surprise.  “You said you weren’t staying anywhere in particular.  She sometimes takes in boarders for the summer.  She has an empty house this summer, so I thought you might find it comfortable.”

“I—I couldn’t,” I stammered.  “I mean…” I felt my face flooding with blood and knew my cheeks were scarlet.  “I… I don’t have any money,” I admitted, trying to hide my face by staring down at the ground and my feet.  “I couldn’t afford to stay anywhere.”

Devin waved his hand in the air.  “Don’t worry about it.  You can help her out in the garden and she’d think herself repaid in full.  She won’t mind an extra pair of hands around.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled.  “I don’t know why you’re being so nice.”

As he didn’t appear to have heard me, I didn’t press the point.  I had grown up in the Midwest, it wasn’t unheard of for hospitality to be extended to those in need. Now here I was, horribly in need, and Devin had appeared like some pug-nosed knight in shining armor.  I wasn’t going to press the point. 

I knew all too well that I had no money, no future… nothing but the clothes on my back, which were not clothes I recognized, when it came down to it.  I was fairly sure that the nearly ground-length green dress I was wearing with a white undershirt of some light, yet warm fabric, was not something I had ever had in my jeans and t-shirt closet.  The fine, leather ankle-boots were certainly not mine.  Who had dressed me, anyway?  I must look like something out of an old fairytale in a get-up like that.

I reached up a hand to touch my hair and found it plaited behind me in a long tail.  My hair was long, nearly to my waist, but curly enough and thick enough that it rarely appeared to be that length.

I wondered about this apparent gap in my memory.  Perhaps I had struck my head.  Or maybe everything I seemed to remember was nothing but some strange post-traumatic stress dream.  Only one thing was sure—nothing was making sense.  Something had happened to me.  I had either leapt into the ocean and been rescued, in which case I could not even slightly remember my savior… the young girl in the cottage?  Or I had wandered around for heaven knows how long, completely unaware of my surroundings… hallucinating?  Either way there were some serious gaps in my memory, and in my understanding. 

I felt completely off-balance, as if I had opened my bedroom door and found Narnia there, staring me in the face… make that Wildside, I amended to myself.

Devin was whistling to himself, a rollicking, happy tune that somehow seemed to echo the golden and green of the spring abounding around us.  It seemed fitting that he would whistle—his homely, kind face fitting well with the happy tail-wagging golden dog, the birdsong on the cool breeze coming off of the ocean.

We came in sight of a cove, with a small boat brought aground.  Devin waded out into the water and Kip, the dog, leapt aboard, bearing a large white stick in his mouth—a trophy from his ramblings.  I followed, aware of the cool, moist air rising towards me as I approached the water.  A tingling filled my legs and lurched into my stomach as I stepped aboard the boat.  I leaned over the side, dropping my fingers into the rich beauty of the salty water surrounding us.

The water was hypnotizing.  Even the slight touch of the tips of my fingers against the sleek surface drew tingling bolts of energy up through my arms, making me break out in goose bumps.  I leaned closer, drawn in.  I dropped my second hand into the water, but it wasn’t enough.  It could never be enough…

“Careful, or you’ll have us over!” Devin cried sharply.

I jumped.  I had forgotten anything existed but the water.  I obediently took my seat, but I let my fingers lightly dance across the surface.  Something in me could not bear to be this close and not be in the water.  It took all of my self-control not to jump from the boat and submerse myself in a grand echo of my leap?  Fall?  Dream?  Of…
 
last night?  Ever?  It no longer mattered that I could not remember what had befallen me.  All I wanted was to be with the sea.  I wanted to taste it, to be held by it.  I wanted to feel the chill against my skin, the waves pulling at my hair.

“Meg,” Devin said.

I snapped to awareness, feeling as if I had drifted into a trance.  Devin was regarding me steadily, with a quiet, guarded look on his face. 

“Where, exactly, are you from?” He asked.

“Missouri,” I said, surprised.

“How did you end up here?” He asked it as soon as I had answered his first.  I felt as if he were firing the questions at me.

I wondered what right he had to treat me as if I were under questioning in the Inquisition.  So what if I was on his boat?  Had my trespass on the island really been such a big deal?

“I drove,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm.  I felt a blush touch my cheeks and I clasped my hands together, much as I longed to throw them, and myself, back into the water. 

“Why did you leave Missouri?”

I narrowed my eyes at him, trying unsuccessfully to bite back a retort that I was unaware of any laws stating that I had to get permission from a Canadian to leave Missouri.  I must not have gotten that memo.

The lines on his brow spoke of concern, not the anger that his voice expressed. 

I sighed, and leaned my head against my hands.  “My… my father died.  I didn’t have anywhere to go.  I just… drove.”