David is using a spade to dig near the foot of a peach tree at the edge of the orchard when I find him. He is still shirtless, his muscles rippling beautifully while he works. I think he'd just finished burying the crow in a place where what's left of its desiccated corpse could at least feed a tree any nutrients it might still contain.
I watch him pat down the ground and dig the spade into the earth next to the grave, and he jumps a little when he turns to discover me standing near him, watching him with rapt attention. I'm happy to report that his limp is gone, and he is once again moving with the mesmerizing grace of a cat.
"I don't think you have another clean shirt, do you?" I say, stepping closer. The tank top and shirt he'd worn when I met him (was it only yesterday?) are still soaking in the downstairs tub. "I'm sorry, the stuff on the t-shirt you slept in is oil paint; it's not likely to come out even if I use turpentine or thinners on it, but I'll try. You can wear this if you want to." I hold the shirt I brought with me out to him.
"Thanks," he says, pulling off his work gloves and dropping them to the ground before he takes Craig's old lived-in university rugby t-shirt and pulls it on. I love to lounge around in that shirt. It is a tent on me, but it fits David quite snugly, showing off his muscles in a rather pleasing way. "Don't worry about that t-shirt; it's not worth the effort. It's quite old. I could actually still wear it to work out here if you'd rather have this back now."
"I've already dumped it in the tub with the other things," I tell him, shaking my head and stepping back to create some distance between us.
"Did... did you get your coffee?" Yesterday, I felt so comfortable around David, now I'm wound as tightly as a ball. I'm feeling frustrated and energised, and extremely confused. I don't know how to get that comfort back again. He is having a hard time even looking me in the eye, and I think it is because he blames himself for what happened to us while we were sleeping.
Seriously, has the man heard nothing I told him about sleepwalking and other non-awake activities? This is not his fault. If anybody is to blame, it is me. I invited him into the bed. Sure, I was just being compassionate and wanted to give him a comfortable place to sleep after making him wrestle with clocks and play hide and seek... and beating him with a poker.
Besides, as strange as it might seem, I don't feel violated. I just feel lonely. Especially when I look at him, and he is here but also so far away. I'm mostly upset because if I am going to kiss this man, I want to be awake and aware of doing it.
"Yes, thanks," he smiles. "I made you some too, but you didn't come, so I drank it. Sorry."
"I was getting dressed," I shrug, but I'm sure he can see that. I'm no longer wearing cheeky alarm clocks and his paint-smeared t-shirt. I'm wearing track pants and another of Craig's comfortable old T-shirts. This one has a washed-out smurf on the front, making a rude gesture and sporting the words 'Smurf Off!'
Yes, it's a crude t-shirt, but I used to love the Smurfs when I was a kid. Now I just think they're weird, and I find this shirt handy when Craig is irritating me. Looking at David grinning at my shirt, I regret wearing it. I don't find David irritating; I don't want him to Smurf Off at all.
"I was thinking about what you said earlier about being used," he says, suddenly serious again. I'm pretty sure I didn't put it quite as nicely. "I don't believe in spirits hanging around and messing with us, taking over our bodies to do what they would like to do. I also don't think that building behind you is anything but an old house. One that I happen to love."
I nod my head slowly, not sure I know what I believe at this point. Being here has been challenging every idea of what is normal that I have ever had. Where is he going with this? Has he changed his mind about my mental health?
"I do believe in memories and lingering energy causing atmospheres in places, and I also think that those memories can be stirred up by people who connect with it. Sometimes it might even be really strong."
He stares at me for so long that I'm starting to think he is never going to finish his thought, or perhaps he is waiting for me to finish it, but I have no idea what his thoughts are. I don't even know what mine are.
"I love this place, Belle. When I come here, I connect to the memories of the happy generations that lived here before things went South, and I want to bring that back. This place speaks to my desire for a family, a happy home, and a thriving farm. That dream last night... or this morning, tapped right into that. I've never experienced love like that, and I've always wanted it."
He pauses, raking his fingers through his hair, turning his head to run his eyes over the horizon. The sun is glistening on the wet leaves of the tree where David is standing, picking out bright diamonds around his head. I've never seen someone shine the way he does.
"Perhaps, you have that same longing?" he says gently, looking at me again, and I'm knocked breathless by the force of his eyes. "You said your father died when you were young, and your cousin and aunt moved in when their family got ripped apart by divorce. Your uncle married again, and though he has a decent relationship with your cousin, there's no room for him in his new family, and he preferred to stay with you and your mom when his mother got married again and moved out. While you were telling me all of that, I heard the same longing in your voice.
"You told me about your last boyfriend, who is an idiot, by the way, because being with someone who likes to party hard and constantly will grow old really soon, and then he'll realise that he'd let the real treasure slip through his fingers."
I smile at his kind words. Hank told me that I was boring and he needed the excitement the earing girl provided in baskets full. He probably meant beer cases full. I gaze into David's eyes, and I cannot imagine ever loving Hank. It all seems so shallow and far away.
When I was getting dressed, I saw that my phone finally had some bars of signal. There were a million messages and missed calls from Craig. The last one said that he was in the town of Misty Falls, the nearest town and that he is trying to organise a boat to come and get me, but he was not having any luck.
There are too many small villages where people are trapped on their rooftops and people who are searching for missing family members. He hasn't yet been able to find someone who can help him get to me. According to everyone he spoke to, I'm not in immediate danger. He was also told that the river needs to calm down before it will be safe to cross anyway. Nobody is willing to risk it.
I called him right away, and after listening to him blowing off steam about how worried he was, I assured him that I am fine. I did not tell him about the weird things happening in this house or about making out in my sleep with a man I barely know. I didn't tell him about David at all because he might decide to swim that raging river if he knows that I'm trapped here with a stranger.
I assured him of my safety and my ability to sustain myself for the month I'd rented the place. I brought enough food to feed an army, and it should last even though there are two mouths to feed now. For some reason, I'm no longer afraid. I probably will be again, but right now, the sun is shining, and I'm floating on some weird love cloud... or at least, I was. David's theory is bringing me down fast, making me realise that none of what I'm feeling is real.
So, the quickening of my heartbeat and the longing to stroke his hair out of his eyes are all just caused by my loneliness tapping into the happy memories in this house. The memory in the dream was not happy, though... and it didn't feel like a memory.
"They were so sad," I whisper, and David tilts his head, frowning at me. Clearly, he has no idea what I'm referring to, as I haven't said a word out loud about what I was thinking. "So, the memories in the house are causing feelings and dreams because we're susceptible to them?"
"Yeah," David says, but his eyes are delving into mine again, making my spine tingle in a very pleasant way. "Something like that..."
He doesn't sound completely convinced.
I don't want to be toyed with by residue memories and the longing of people who are long gone. I need to know what I'm really feeling and thinking. I'm glad that David is probably not a mop after all, but I am feeling things for him that seem very real to me. I need a way to find out whether or not they are.
I nod my head, turn towards the west, and take off.
"Belle? Where are you going?"
"The groundkeeper's cottage," I inform him in a very decisive voice.
No, I have no idea where I'm going, but David said the cottage is to the west, and thanks to Ron and the maggots, I know which way is West. The area could potentially be vast, but it's a house. How hard can it be to find? Besides, I'm determined. I'll probably have my answer when I'm outside of the happy-sad memory radius of this house, regardless of whether I find the cottage or not.
There was a reason why the farmer who rented the property preferred to stay there. Yes, it could've been to be closer to his crops, but he might simply have wanted to unplug from the joyous mind-boggling memories and energies boiling in the mansion.
"I'll take you," David says, catching up to me. "We should use the truck; the road there is pretty overgrown and rough."
He looks down pointedly at my flip-flops, and I know that he is right. There is another potential advantage of his accompanying me. There will be no out-of-sight, out-of-mind scenario mucking up my experiment.
"Thanks," I say, waiting for him to go into the house to get the keys to his truck.
He was right, walking this way would've been hell on foot wearing flip-flops; besides, though I now have advanced knowledge of geography, I was aiming way too much towards the south of the cottage. I would've missed it completely.
When the rutted, overgrown road finally brings us to the toppling stone wall of the cottage, I realise that I could've walked right past it without seeing it because it is not standing out in the open; it is nestling in the strangling embrace of trees and thick shrubs. David pushes the small, rusted pedestrian gate, and it opens with a scream loud enough to rouse swarms of birds from their resting place amongst the many trees.
They take off in a noisy mass of squawks and screeches.
The stone walkway up to the front door is broken and covered with jagged edges. I have to navigate it with extreme care and am happy when we finally can go no further. The cottage consists of an open-plan kitchen and living area, a bedroom and a small bathroom. I can tell all of that standing just outside the front door because a huge dead tree has fallen down on the house, taking parts of the wall and roof with it.
"There's no furniture in there," I observe, thinking that it's a really good thing because they would've been smashed, rained on, and utterly destroyed by now.
"Yes, I took it out a few years ago and stored it in the empty bedrooms in the house."
"Good thinking," I nod, slowly looking over the destruction. "I can make this work," I lie, wondering what plan C is going to be now.
"Yeah, I can totally see you do that. I mean, the bathroom is still standing, the toilet's a bit... well..., but the tub is still there, and it looks really cosy."
"Shut up," I laugh, giving David a backhand in his stomach. He doesn't even flinch at the assault and merely takes my hand in his. He drops it when I turn to him, and now, we're standing around awkwardly looking for something to say because the air is filled with electricity, and it is not residual from the storm that ravaged this place.
"Look, Belle; I understand that you don't want to be around me anymore. Hell, I don't want to be around me anymore..." He lowers his head and rubs a hand over the back of his neck. "I'll stay here. I can park the truck over there and..."
He is being serious, looking at sections of the roof that don't seem to be about to fall in and areas where he could find shelter. He is making me feel horrible. I take his hand, startling him into quitting his survey and turning to look at me instead.
"We should take a mattress from storage and put it somewhere safe and comfortable... The living room, perhaps. There are mattresses in those rooms, aren't there?"
"Yes, but I went to the solarium in my sleep, so..."
I get his point. Separate beds and rooms are not going to help if those memories and energies or whatever decide to have some more fun. And now we're gazing at each other again, a million unspoken words passing between us. David is tangling his fingers with mine, and I'm drowning in his eyes.
"I don't think the gatekeeper's house is far enough away," I observe, talking about my disconnect experiment, but David is glancing at the cottage, and back along the virtually invisible road we've travelled to get here.
"Maybe not," he agrees, squeezing my hand. "But it will be harder to get to you in my sleep."
"I meant the signal is still strong."
"Huh?"
"Will you please take me to the flooded bridge?" I ask, hit by sudden inspiration.
"Belle, we really cannot cross it now..."
"I just want to see what the signal is like over there."
"Oh! Yeah, it might be better there than at the house."
I frown at him, and then I realise that he must be talking about the location of cell phone towers. He helps me back into the truck that was apparently designed for gymnasts and giants. I feel silly, struggling to get up into the 4x4's cab every time.
The truck bashes its way back to the house, and once we reach the paved area where my car is still hanging around bravely, David turns the truck towards the winding driveway through the forest. There are some tumbled trees in there as well, and he has to carefully navigate the vehicle around some large branches in our way too.
When we reach the closed gates to the property, David jumps out of the cab faster than I can get my door open and pushes the gates out of our way before he gets back into the truck. I expect to feel something profound when we leave La Belle Pêche and reach the road leading away from it, but nothing changes, and eventually, we reach the bridge. At least, we reach an unflooded area looking down on it and the carnage of the storm from a safe distance.
Nothing I've heard up until now has prepared me for the vast expanse of fast-flowing water below us, washing away everything in its wake. The bridge I crossed to reach the farm is somewhere there under all that water.
"Craig wanted to cross this to come and get me," I mutter, feeling sad and scared and touched and so many other emotions I cannot even begin to put into words.
"He must really love you."
"Yeah, I guess he does."
I run my eyes along the route of the devastating water, and David puts an arm around my shoulders when I fail to stifle a sob.
"It's going to be alright, Belle," he says, kissing the top of my head.
"Not for the towns down river..." My heart is breaking for the victims of this horrible flood.
I turn to gaze up the road where we just came from. La Belle Pêche is over a few hills from here, high... if not dry, safely out of harm's way.
"We're not on your land anymore, right?"
"No, our land ends a couple of kilometres further West from the cottage, and to the south, it ends where the world falls into the sea. There's an area to the East as well, but it's mostly mountain. Why?"
"The memories and energies you believe influenced our actions last night and turned me into a crazy person should not have any reach here, should they?"
"It's not an exact science," David shrugs. "It's mostly just my theory... and I have no idea what I'm talking about..."
I gaze up into his face. He didn't shave this morning or last night, and dark stubble is enhancing his jawline in a very sexy way.
"I don't think you're a mop after all," I assure him... or myself and reach up to touch his stubble, my fingers rasping over the coarse hair.
"Good to know," David smiles, swallowing convulsively. "I started feeling some pretty strong things for you the moment you tried to throw orange juice at me, and I caught you in my arms, Lunabelle Emmerson," he says, taking my hand in his, and I'm not sure if he just meant to remove it from his face, but he is not letting it go; instead, he is tangling his fingers with mine. I remember how my reaction to him had been what caused me to almost shower him with juice in the first place.
"Me too," I whisper, not trusting my voice at all.
"It just keeps on growing since then."
"Really? After everything I've put you through?"
He smiles, brushing his free hand over my hair. "To me, you're just the perfect blend of strange, funny and sweet. You are so real, Belle."
"I don't believe in love at first sight," I tell him, biting my lip, my feet moving me closer to him without any cooperation from me.
"Neither do I," David says, and I think he might be lying because he folds an arm around me, pulling me against him. He lowers his head, and now his lips are drowning out any lies I still might try to contribute to the conversation.
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