Beneath the Whispering Trees

A story above love and losing and how everything perfect can fall apart.

Johnathon was always happiest in springtime. Somehow the air felt fresher and reinvigorated his body, like a nylon string ready to produce a beautiful note.  Each morning the church bells clanged a song of hope and anticipation that tingled over his skin. Something special was drawing near. That was the feeling, creeping and gnawing like a little mouse in the back of his mind. Other people noticed it too. When he walked through the streets of the little rural village, his face inevitably cracked into a wide smile that was golden and crisp like ale. 
“What do you know that I don’t” called out the baker with a suspicious leer.
“What are you up to?” hollered Mrs Cavendish with a squint and a scowl.

But Johnathon shrugged off their words and he continued to grin and wait for the magical thing that must surely be just around the corner.

 

It was with this attitude; carefree as a breeze that Johnathon packed his rifle for hunting in the early hours just before dawn. He had cleaned it thoroughly, as his father had taught him and carried the ammunition in a pouch on his belt. He had been possessed by an impulsive feeling as he awoke right out of a dream that today seemed like a perfect day for hunting.  He imagined stocking his pantry with some fat hares for stew and perhaps a pheasant or large rack of venison that he could divide up and sell to the butcher.  As he stepped out into the soft, murmuring dawn he closed his eyes and opened his nose to the morning. It smelled of promise, like newly turned soil and the first blooms of lavender.

 

Johnathon made his way on foot to a small, barely visible trail that burrowed its way into the thick of the woods like a worm disappearing into the ground. He had walked this track a hundred times and knew it’s every dip and turn with the intimacy of an old friend. Once or twice he stepped off the path to crouch beside a clearing or pond that he knew to be good places for game. Hunting was mostly observation. Knowing where to look, watching the wind and a lot of sitting in silence. Being a true shot was just the final peg. By mid-morning he had three fat juicy hares hanging from his belt. The sun began to glint through the thick canopy, throwing shards of speckled silver light onto the path that danced gracefully in time to the sway of the whispering trees. The breeze tasselled his wispy dark hair, like a playful older brother and tugged at his clothing like a mischievous lover.  Feeling as happy as he thought it was possible to be he took a turn off the path and sought out a familiar old knotted tree to stop for some food and a rest. He unwrapped a fist of brown bread and a block of cheese and followed it up with an apricot.  His stomach was comfortably full as he felt the food settle and allowed, just for a moment, his eyes to droop heavy and content as he drifted away in a pleasant doze.

 

A strange, lilting song swirled along on the breeze, floating and bouncing like a fluttering leaf. It was an alien sound in the forest, and immediately Johnathon opened his eyes. In all the many years since he had traipsed around in these woods, he had never encountered another soul. Most of the local hunters preferred the southern woods that were more open and well light, with less danger of stepping into a poacher’s trap. He was immediately caught by an intense curiosity. He stood slowly and scanned through the dappled light, searching for the source of the sound. It was the smallest flutter of blue behind a tree to his right that first caught his eye. It could have been a butterfly or a bird, but Johnathon was determined that it belonged to the singer of the strange melody. Without another thought he set off towards it. The swirling, floating tune grew slowly louder, but the more Johnathon peered into the shadows the more elusive the singer seemed.  He began to run. No longer attempting to be stealthy, he began cashing through the undergrowth with a growing sense of urgency. He must find the singer of this haunting and mysterious song!

Finally, panting and slicked with perspiration he topped a small rise that fell gently away into a lush valley. Down the gentle slope he saw it. The blue swish of a skirt. The singer was moving in the direction away from him, caught up in her song and oblivious to his presence.

“Hey!” He called out, breathlessly. He saw the woman stop. Her hair was dark and gently brushed her waist. Slowly, she turned around. Their eyes locked for the briefest of moments before Johnathon could not contain his mounting excitement any longer. His sunshine grin broke out in full and he charged forward like a deer in flight.

 

He had only taken a single step however, when he heard the distinct “clink” of metal. A second later he was sprawled on the ground, soil and dirt filling his nose and eyes and a deep, excruciating pain began to sear into his right leg. He cried out in agony and tried to push himself up. He didn’t need to see it to know what had happened. It could be only be a long forgotten poacher’s trap, left in wait and hungry for prey. He felt the warm ooze of blood from the wound and squeezed his eyes shut to block out the world.

 

Then suddenly she was beside him. Her hair was close to his face as she bent forward, her small hands working quickly and deftly at the trap. She smelt like honey and violets. He could hear her breathing heavily and understood that she must have run up the hill to help him. She straightened up and yanked at her long, blue skirt, tearing off a long strip of fabric, the size of a ribbon. She looked at him full in the face for the first time.

“On three I need you to pull out your leg and put pressure on the wound so I can bandage it. Do you understand?”

Johnathon nodded mutely. The blue of her skirt, now smudged with his blood was the exact same shade as her eyes. She looked at him with concern her face winced in anticipation.

“It’s going to hurt.” She added.
“It already does.” Johnathon responded hoarsely. She nodded once, now resolute. She counted to three and yanked open the rusted trap and Johnathon pulled away his leg and held the slippery wound as best he could. Quickly and with expert skill she wrapped the ribbon of fabric around and around the wound and knotted it tightly.

For a moment his head spun and he flopped down onto his back and stared up at the thick knotted branches muttering overhead that reached out for each other’s embrace. Slowly everything returned to normal and he sat up with leaves strewn in his hair. She sat beside him as still as stone, her soft blue eyes staring at him with intense concern.

“Thankyou. I think I’m ok now.” He said sheepishly.

“Why were you following me?” She asked pointedly.

“I heard your song. And I’ve never seen anyone in these woods before.”

She was silent in reply. There was a lengthy pause and Johnathon began to feel awkward under her intense gaze. Maybe he had made a mistake in following her so hastily.

“I don’t usually talk to people.” She eventually replied.

“Oh. Ok.” Johnathon couldn’t think of anything else to say. “Why not?”

She frowned and he saw her eyes flash with something before she looked away. Anger? Shame? He wasn’t sure.

“Look I’m sorry” he rushed on. “It’s none of my business. I’m really sorry to have bothered you. I’ll just ah… hurry on my way.”  The absurdity of him hurrying anywhere didn’t escape the woman who knelt in the dirt beside him and the hint of a smile brushed her lips.

 

Once again she looked at him deeply, searching his face for something he didn’t understand. She bit her lip. “It’s complicated. People don’t generally like me you see. I make them… uncomfortable.”

Again Johnathon found himself at a loss for how to reply. Certainly she was a little strange. Intense. But there didn’t seem anything particularly unlikeable about her.  He shrugged.
“You’re pretty great with a bandage?”

The intense seriousness that had possessed her a moment before was broken and suddenly she burst out in spontaneous laughter. It was pure and delightful and hung lightly in the air like Christmas bells.  As Johnathon began to join in she slapped a hand across her mouth and cut the laughter short. Her eyes were now wide and filled with horror. Johnathon sat forward in alarm and reached for her. She jerked back as though she had been struck by an electric force, hurried to her feet and shook her head. Tears now welled in her eyes. “I forgot myself” she whispered, her voice heavy with misery and disappointment.

A thousand questions trampled to Johnathon’s lips and instantly evaporated as he stared in shock at the woman before him. Her feet and shins had disappeared. Vanished completely. And as he watched in horrified silence, the rest of her legs began to fade away. Faster and faster, the nothingness swallowed her; her long, blue skirt, her faded yellow blouse. Helplessly Johnathon stared at her neck and face which was all that remained.

In a strangled and desperate voice she suddenly whispered “Eloise.”

And vanished completely.

 

It was a heavy silence that dripped with despair and horror and disbelief. Johnathon sat staring at the place where a moment before the woman had stood. Now there was nothing but the gentle caress of the forest breeze on his cheek. Johnathon sat for a long time trying to make sense of what had happened before him. If it wasn’t for the blue bandage now stained with his blood, he would have thought that he’d hit his head and imagined the whole thing. The sun was sinking low and the shadows of the forest growing long when Johnathon finally pushed himself to his feet and slowly hobbled towards home.

 

He dreamt about her that night. Her ringing laugh, her piercing blue eyes, her long dark hair. The smell of violets and honey. And she continued to haunt his dreams every night after that. His eyes became fevered and during the days after his leg had healed he paced about his home consumed with the memories of the woman he had encountered in the whispering woods. He began to rave at his neighbours about what he had seen and eventually the village Doctor was called.

He was given a concoction to help him sleep, but he found himself just as tormented by her wide, horrified eyes as when he was awake. “Eloise” she whispered over and over to him. “Eloise.”

 

He stopped taking the Doctor’s brew and instead began a vigil. Every morning at dawn he would travel into the forest, walking and calling her name. He would walk until exhaustion overcame him, which occurred more and more frequently after he stopped eating.

Weeks passed and Johnathon could barely be recognised as the light-hearted young man he had been at the beginning of spring. His wispy brown hair had become long and wild, like an overgrown garden. A coarse, tangled beard hung from his chin and a dark obsession lurked in his eyes. He was gaunt, surly and made little sense when he rambled about vanishing women in the woods. He stopped returning home altogether and began sleeping in the valley where he had injured his leg.

 

Spring began to fade into summer and many people the village had accepted that Johnathon was mad and that he would eventually perish in the woods. He maintained his vigil with obsessive ritual week after week, determined that he would see the woman again. It was late in the evening as the shadows grew longer and Johnathon gnawed on a root that he had collected from nearby. It barely stopped the hunger pains that stabbed and pierced his stomach. His eyes were finally beginning to droop in exhaustion and his head beginning to rest back against a tree when something out of place caught his eye.

 

It was a shoe. Sitting there amongst the leaves. He blinked. Now there was two. Two shoes sitting amongst the leaves. He rubbed his eyes confused. Was this a dream? He stared without blinking at the two shoes that had not been there a moment before. And then, in another moment there were ankles. Then calves.

 

Johnathon scrambled to his feet, his heart pounding like a soldier’s drum. It was her! It had to be!

Within seconds her blue skirt and faded yellow blouse had returned, followed finally by her face. She stood completely still, her eyes closed.

 

Johnathon stood before her, his eyes wild and his breath billowing out in swirling white clouds. After a pause that lasted a lifetime, she slowly blinked open her eyes. She was confused. And then frightened. Suddenly her faculties came crashing back and she registered the wild man with fevered eyes standing inches from her nose.

 

She slapped his face. Hard.

 

He doubled over wheezing for breath as she backed away. He held up a hand reaching for her, his eyes desperate. Still gasping for breath he pulled out a long ribbon of dirty blue fabric stained with blood. She eyed it uncertainly.

“You?” she asked. He sunk to his knees and nodded as his breath returned in gasping heaves as though he’d surface from deep under water.

“What? I don’t understand? Why are you here? You look….. terrible!” she cried/  

“I waited….” He said hoarsely. “I… waited for you to come back.. What goes up, must come down… right?”

“I didn’t go up.”

“You went… somewhere.”

The awkward silence that had punctuated their initial brief encounter spread out before them again.

“I…” She hesitated, her voice becoming softer. “I told you I make people uncomfortable.”

“This has happened before?” he cried taken aback. She nodded sadly and looked away.

She sighed and then continued. “Things were difficult when I was a child. My parents were poor and my father drank away what little we had. In some ways, it was probably a blessing. I was four the first time I felt truly happy. You know, the deep down kind of happy that sits in the bottom of your stomach and hugs you from the inside out? I found a puppy wandering in the field beside our house. I took him inside and gave him some boiled rabbit from the pantry. After he finished eating he bounded around with such glee I couldn’t help but laugh. Then he came up and licked my nose. That was the first time.”

Johnathon stood in shocked silence. “That was the first time you vanished?” She nodded grimly.

“It wasn’t long that time. Three days. My father hardly noticed, but my mother was furious thinking that I’d run off and neglected my chores. The puppy was gone and I felt dead inside. I wasn’t happy again after that for a long time. So everyone just kind of forgot about it.”

“So. It only happens when you’re happy? That’s…. well that’s completely crazy!”

She smiled sadly and shrugged. “Maybe it is. But it is what it is. As far as crazy goes, you’re the one that hasn’t bathed in �" how long has it been? �" a year?”  She wrinkled her nose in an exaggerated way,

Johnathon snorted in response.

“It’s not so bad you know.”  She continued. “There are degrees. I live a life that is… content. I can be content. I just can’t ever be truly happy. Deep down, skipping through fields of daisies kind of happy.”

“You only laughed once with me.”

“That was….. different.” She seemed perplexed. “You took me by surprise.” 

She shivered and Johnathon realised the forest had grown dark as they spoke.

“My home is not far. Come with me.”

She looked offended. “My home is not far either. And I’ve known you all of two minutes. You haven’t even been courteous enough to tell me your name!”

Johnathon gritted his teeth in frustration. He had waited day in and day out for weeks. Now here she was standing with her hands on her hips, her chin jutting forward as if nothing had happened. It was completely infuriating. He took a deep breath, trying to remain polite. He thought for her it must have seemed like only seconds since they last met.

“My name is Johnathon. I’m just scared you might disappear again. That’s all.”

As the moonlight began to trickle through the gaps in the trees, he caught a glimpse of a smile that she pushed away.

“I’ll be just fine. Come and see me tomorrow. And have a bath first.” She turned on her heels and was swallowed up by the black forest.

 

Johnathon returned home to bath. He pruned the overgrown garden of his hair and shaved away his beard. By the time he was done he had mostly returned to himself, although the residue of the neglect and starvation clung around the corners of his eyes and mouth. It made him appear older and somehow wiser.  He rose early and visited with Eloise. She showed him the well-trodden place that led to a tiny cabin nestled deep in the heart of the woods. She had a small vegetable garden and large bushes of roses by the front. It was quiet and peaceful and content. Johnathon also felt that is was profoundly lonely. When he mentioned as much she scolded him and disappeared inside only to return with a tall birdcage that housed a fluttering sparrow.

“This is Dondarion. My friend.” She announced proudly.

“That’s a rather magnificent name for a sparrow?” He replied.

She shot him a look of annoyance. “That’s because he’s a perfectly magnificent sparrow.”

Johnathon smiled and shrugged.

As the evening came creeping softly they walked together in the twilight beneath the soft, murmuring trees.

“What’s it like” he asked tentatively. He knew it made her sad to talk about the vanishing, but sad was good right? It meant he wouldn’t lose her again.

She shrugged gently in reply. “It’s not like anything.”

“What do you mean? Are you still yourself? Do you still exist?”

“I’m not really sure. I think so. But it’s just… nothingness. I can’t really tell where the nothingness ends and I begin. Or even if I do begin.”

“Do you feel anything? Does it hurt?”

“No. It’s just empty. Nothing. It’s not unpleasant and I can’t ever tell how long I’m gone for. It most certainly doesn’t hurt. Its just… well… nothing!”

They walked for a time in a comfortable silence. Johnathon knew it was time to return home but it was becoming harder and harder to leave her.

“Eloise.” He said tentatively. She stopped. There was a deep uncertainty in her large blue eyes.

“Whatever you’re going to say…. It’s not going to be good.” She bit her lip. Johnathon thought about the words to use. Words that wouldn’t make her happy, but wouldn’t hurt her either.

“I want us to be… together.”

He watched a storm gather behind her eyes. Immediately she was cross.

“I thought you were smarter than that! How could that ever happen. I can’t make you happy… and you certainly can’t make me happy! Unless my not being here makes you happy.”

“Eloise. I know for you it hasn’t been long. But I’ve had weeks and weeks to think about this. To think about you. I would rather be miserable and together then content and apart!” He looked at her pleadingly and meant every word in earnest.  She drank them in and slowly and the storm began to pass.

Her voice was quiet. “Do you truly mean that?”  He nodded vigorously. “How? How can this work. Tell me.”

“It’s easy. We will just go along and work hard at not being happy!” He exclaimed it as though it made all the sense in the world. “We can deny ourselves just enough that we are never quite truly satisfied. It’s pretty much what you’ve been doing anyway. The only difference is that we will be doing it together.”

 

It was from that moment on that Johnathon, the boy with the golden springtime smile began to fall in love with Eloise the vanishing forest maiden. They tumbled together into summer, trying hard to ensure they were not blissfully happy. And of course they failed over and over again. At first they tried to prolong their absences from each other. But suffering and yearning through the days apart only increased the exquisite joy they felt when they finally came together. Johnathon prepared topics of conversation that he thought would be dull, or sad or irritating to Eloise. But they rarely ever had the chance to discuss them because simply seeing him emerge from the forest with his irresistible, unrestrained smile was enough to cause her to blink out of existence. They tried to save their meetings for the cover of darkness, but that only increased their desire to hold each other close. They tried a thousand things to prevent themselves from being happy but by the time summer drew to a close they were both exhausted with frustration. Eloise had disappeared an increasing number of times in the past month. Sometimes it was for hours, sometimes for days and occasionally for weeks. Each time Johnathon would pace relentlessly in front of her cabin, as frantic as a trapped rabbit until she finally returned. The fear that one day she would not come back burnt and dissolved his insides like acid.

 

As summer turned into the auburn hues of autumn the happy glow of their feelings for each other had been tainted by their inability to control Eloise’s disappearances. Johnathon began to avoid her cabin in the woods, not in the interests of prolonging their time apart, but because he felt sick and anxious with worry that something would cause her to vanish. They were trapped in a terrible spiralling circle that to be veering out of control.

It was a chilly morning and Johnathon had been spilling his frustrations on the woodpile. He stood lathered in sweat, axe in hand when he heard soft footsteps behind him. Instinctively his fingers reached into his pocket and caressed the soft, blue ribbon that he had since scrubbed clean. He didn’t need to turn around to know it was her.

“Hey.” He said cautiously. She rarely ventured from out of the woods.

“Hey” she replied uncertainly. “I hope it’s ok that I came?”
“Of course.” He continued to swing the axe, biting down into the long, hard logs. He had a feeling this was going to be a hard conversation.

“Johnathon.” She said softly. He sighed. Dropping the axe he turned slowly to face her. She continued haltingly. “Johnathon. This isn’t working. We’re both.. exhausted. We can’t continue like this. The guilt is eating me whole.”

He nodded morosely. “So you’re just ready to give up?” he asked coldly. She paused and licked her lips.
“Actually, I have an idea. But I’m not sure you’ll like it?”

“If there is another alternative to letting you go, I’m open to listening.” He replied.

She smiled, relaxing a little. “Well. I say we stop fighting it. We’ve been trying so very hard to not be happy together that we’ve all but destroyed ourselves in the process. Why don’t we just be happy. Do what we want to do, be who we want to be and just accept that it will mean that I vanish occasionally. Probably frequently.”

 

Johnathon felt his anger mounting. “Well that’s good and easy for you isn’t it? You’re not stuck here eating yourself up with worry because you may not come back!”  He knew it was unfair. He knew what he had signed up for from the start. But in the beginning he had truly believed that they loved each other enough to make it work. Now he wasn’t so certain. Her eyes were welling with tears.

“You once told me that you’d rather be miserable and together than content and apart. Do you still believe that?” She asked quietly through the tears that streamed down her face. He wanted to go to her. To kiss her deeply and make all of the heartbreak disappear. But they couldn’t do that. They had tried once. He had kissed her just long enough for her tears to dampen his cheeks before she slipped through his fingers like sand. When he had opened his eyes she had been gone and he was alone under the cold, whispering trees.  At first he couldn’t answer her. He stood staring into her eyes of blue, knowing that every dagger he drove into her heart was another day she would stary solid and real and he would be free from worry. A dangerous seed of selfish desire began to sprout in the back of his mind.

“I don’t want you anymore Eloise.” He lied cruelly. “It’s just too hard.” He watched with an electrifying spark of grim satisfaction as her eyes became fountains that poured salty teardrops all over her blouse.  She turned and ran, disappearing into the outstretched arms of the forest that kept them apart.

 

He went to see her the next day, and the day after that. Every day he went to see her and every day they screamed and yelled and cried and said how much they hated each other. But he never stopped going. And she never turned him away.  Day after day he found her there, safe and sound; real and solid. So even though they tortured each other relentlessly, Johnathon found himself free of the consuming, sick dread that he felt every time she vanished.

 

They continued in this terrible pushing and pulling of each other, like magnets attracting and repelling. Until winter loomed and the trees became naked and mournful in the forest.

Johnathan trudged through the cold, mushy slick that had become the path to Eloise’s cabin. The night was falling quickly, but he wanted to take her some venison so that her pantry was well stocked. As he neared the cabin in the blue-grey of the almost-night he caught sight of her by the barren leafless rose bushes dancing with her face upturned to the sky.  As she twirled and danced he saw that she was not happy, but that she was at peace. And he wanted her more than he ever wanted anything before.  He wanted to touch her and kiss her and tell her how much he felt and how deeply. But the forever crushing realisation came that he could never do or say those things that she so deserved to hear. The only way he knew how to love her was by hurting her over and over again. The longer he watched her dance under the beckoning ghosts of trees the more his desire grew. Finally he could stand it no longer.

 

The venison slipped from his fingers to the ground and suddenly she was wrapped in his arms. She was startled.
“Johnathon? What are you doing?” She cried in alarm and began to squirm, but that only fuelled the fire of his hunger further. He pushed his mouth roughly onto hers, knowing that she would detest it. Knowing that she would cry and push him away. But he could never kiss her lovingly. So tis was the only way. Her tears smeared all over his face which pushed him further and further. He was consumed by the desire to have her and love her in the only way he knew how. They tumbled awkwardly to the ground and he began to tear at her clothes, under the glowering trees that loomed angrily in the dark above them.

 

“Johnathon!” She screamed. Her voice was shrill and full of agony and desperation. The terrified cry of an animal trapped and wounded. Immediately he stopped, his eyes filling with tears. He saw himself now, lying on top of her like some kind of vile parasite and he was filled with disgust. She squirmed out from under him, pushing him roughly away. Her lip was bleeding and her hair was full of twigs and dead leaves.

Her face was contorted in fear and utter incomprehension. Her clothes were smeared with mud. He knew he had finally crossed the line that had become so increasingly blurred between them. That he had finally caused to vanish any remaining feelings of love in her heart.  If he had not been so completely overcome by horror at what he had done, he might have found it ironic.

 

She didn’t have to tell him to leave. He stumbled upright, his stomach threatening to empty on his feet. He turned blindly away and made to disappear into the pale trees that creaked in anger and derision. Somehow, through the howling storm of horror in his heart, he heard her voice calling, although he hadn’t heard what she said. He hesitated and turned, ready for whatever dagger she wanted to hurl into his chest.

“Do you still have that blue ribbon I tore from my dress, the first time we met?” she asked coldly. He nodded confused. “I want it back.”

He wasn’t prepared for the impact of those words as they drove through him like an ice shard and left him unable to breathe. With frozen hands that seemed to belong to someone else, he clumsily fished the ribbon from his pocket and let it slip through his fingers and flutter to the ground. He didn’t watch her pick it up as he turned and escaped into the black shadows of the frost covered trees.

 

She didn’t come to seek him out in the weeks that followed, and he wasn’t surprised. He knew that he had crushed her up and blown her away like dust. Days melted together and he began to experience the heavy gravity of what his life without her truly meant. He fantasised on many occasions of wandering aimlessly into the snow covered woods with no clothes or food, knowing that it would not take long to swallow him forever. Yet, he could not bring himself to be so cowardly as to escape from the punishment and torment that hung around his neck like a chain. When winter began to slowly wane and the first signs of spring began to show, he was as surprised as anyone that he had survived the long, dark months.

 

When Johnathon woke up on the first day of spring, a small blossom of hope had erupted in his heart overnight. He shook the feeling away in disgust. What right did he have to feel hopeful? He would never be happy again. The boy with the golden springtime smile had long since perished under the stark, ghostly trees where he had done the very thing that caused that which he feared the most to happen. His vanishing woman was gone. He went about his day and several times stopped to shake the old familiar feeling of anticipation and excitement away from within him. It was simply absurd. Finally, as the day came to a close he sat by his front porch wrapped in a blanket and swigging from a bottle of something strong and potent.

 

He watched out over the budding forest trees, old friends who had kept their distance since his disgrace. Suddenly a flicker of something caught his eye. Something soft and blue. He shook his head, wondering vaguely whether he had drunk more than he thought. And all in a moment there she was. Standing between the trees, her eyes meeting gently with his. The floating lilt of a strange melody tugged gently at his ears.

 

Blanket and booze forgotten he was on his feet. Self-consciously he touched his once-again unruly hair and scratched at his unkempt beard. He fumbled, uncertain whether to go to her or not. Like a dream she smiled sweet and familiar, just like she had last spring. For a moment the last year was forgotten and they were magnets pulling together again for the very first time.

“I thought you were gone” he said solemnly, an unspoken question thrown out into the twilight.

She smiled sadly. “I was. I needed to think. I needed to breathe. I needed to blink out of time for a while.”

“And now?”
“Now I am back for you because I have it all figured out.”

“All what figured out?”
“Us.” She replied with a small, secret smile. “I figured out how to make it work.”

 

Johnathon stared at her mutely. How was it possible that after everything he had done she was standing here proposing that they try again. With surprise he found himself reluctant. He did not want to end up like an enraged beast in a frosted forest ever again. He didn’t trust himself.  
“Eloise. I’m not sure that I have the strength.. what I did �" “

She held a finger to her lips. “I promise. Follow me. Please. “

 

On soft, silent feet she once more disappeared into the blackness of the forest. And once more Johnathon followed her strange, haunting melody as she weaved through the trees, this way and that. Finally, after what was a lengthy wander she stepped out into a clearing.

 

A small pond glistened with newly broken ice and a cluster of fireflies danced above it like a string of fallen stars. She stood before him holding something that fluttered gently in her fingers.  The blue ribbon of fabric from the same skirt she was wore then and wore now.

“What do you want me to do?” He asked.
“I want you to stand close to me. Hold my face in your hands. I want you to look into my eyes and for the first time tell me you love me and mean it with every string of your heart. Then I want you to kiss me. Gently, like the first time.”

 

He understood at last. This was a final farewell. She had given him far more then he deserved.

He stood before her, drowning in the crystal blue of her eyes. He stroked her cheek gently and touched her hair, like he had always dreamt of doing. Finally he took a deep breath and told her the words they both knew were the truth. Then without hesitation he stooped down and kissed her longer and more sweetly then he ever knew was possible. He felt her arms close around him, pulling him in tightly. He continued to kiss her gently and passionately as though they had fallen out of time itself. He was afraid to open his eyes, knowing that at any second she would be lost like a breath in the cold night air.

 

It was her that pulled away first.  She laughed like little bells of delight and he smiled in confusion.
“Shouldn’t you be…”
She laughed again and whispered “Johnathon. Look at your feet!”

He looked down to find himself floating from the knees up. She continued to pull him close. As he watched they began to vanish in synchronicity, the void of nothingness creeping over their knees and up their thighs. He looked at her startled.

“Don’t be afraid. I tested it on Dondarrion the sparrow. When I reappeared, he was fluttering there in my hand alive. Well, mostly.”

Johnathon laughed in surprise. “What a magnificent sparrow!” He exclaimed.

He closed his eyes and let the world evaporate. She had finally discovered the only way for them to belong to each other without either being left behind.  She kissed him softly and looped the blue ribbon between their entwined fingers.

 

Like a heartbeat they blinked away into nothingness, beneath the whispering trees.

 

Only this time it wasn’t quite nothingness. It was them.

 

 

 

 

  

 

Author's Note

So far, I have only done minimal editing.