The grains of sand fall so quickly through the hourglass, and I am greedy to know everything before she disappears. I’ll be left grasping for the shape of her memory, and it makes me even more desperate to discover her now while she’s here and real in front of me.
Moments later, she’s scrambling up and out of the covers. “We should get breakfast.”
I nod, quickly moving to help her with some rations from the pack. We work quietly side by side, but I feel as if there is a sea between us. It is painful after the closeness we shared yesterday, but I don’t know how to span the gulf to get back to her.
I move to the stove and add more wood so she can stay warm outside the sleeping bag. Then I start more water to boiling.
I listen intently as she crunches down on the trail mix Hannah packed and feel her eyes on me as I move around the large room. But whenever I glance her way, her eyes quickly dance to the ground at her feet.
My strained chest feels a little warmer to know that at least she is as much aware of me as I am constantly focused on her. Though we are not speaking, it nonetheless feels like we are engaged in a dance. Hannah taught me what it means when humans dance, which is what this feels like. I turn, and Ksenia responds. I listen for her breath and movement, then I exhale and shift.
I gnaw on some jerky, and once the water is boiled and cooled, we drink some. It will be a long day if we continue to engage in this silent dance.
That is good, though. I hope it will be the longest day of my life. Because what I said remains true. Tomorrow, likely, she willbe gone. So I will memorize these strange moments I have with her. However they pass, I am grateful for them.
I would prefer to repair whatever I seemed to break earlier. I have learned what it means to apologize by watching Hannah and Abaddon, so I try it. “I am sorry if I said something wrong earlier. I do not know many humans. My words are. . . perhaps bad?”
Her head jerks up from the cup of warm water she’s cradling in her hands, her eyes landing on my upper cheek. “No. No, your words are fine.”
I frown. “You. . . did not like them.”
She looks to the floor and expels a long breath. “It’s complicated.”
“I understand that words can be difficult. I do not require them.”
Her head comes up again. “You don’t?”
“I have gone many years without speaking at all. I. . . understand.”
“You did?”
I nod.
“Why?”
Without meaning to, my eyes lift to the church around us. When I am with her, I can almost forget where we are. If I believed in ghosts, this place should be choked with them. But I know better. The souls of this place have moved on.
I know because I was the one who took them all to the otherworld.
“Ah,” she says. “Some things are best without words.”
I nod, my throat thick, grateful.
We are quiet, then, but it is a different quiet from before. I feel together in intimacy with her, not apart in the discord of misunderstanding.
I do not know how long it passes like that before she finally says quietly, “I feel so lost. I don’t know what to do.”
“What do you want to do?”
Her head gives a quick shake. “What I want doesn’t matter.”
I frown. “Isn’t that all that should matter?”
She shakes her head quickly back and forth, and her hand goes to her thighs. She pulls out one of her knives and a small stone and quickly scrapes it across the surface, sharpening the blade.
“You are very good with your blades.”
She nods absent-mindedly.
