As always, I waited for night to cloak our little valley before setting out to see my love. The path to the river was well-trodden, but I followed it only partway through the copse of ash and oak to where a grandfather tree’s foot-polished roots seemed to claw the earth towards its gnarled trunk. My eyes flicked quickly over the charm of twisted sticks fastened with twine in a pattern purported to ward away evil spirits. With a quick glance over my shoulder, I stepped into the thorny tangle of blackberry brambles, careful to leave no sign of my passing by way of broken branch or trailing thread ripped from my clothing. By slipping sideways and ducking low, I was able to wend my way through the tangled underbrush. The faint trail that led from the brambles had been worn to dirt by my feet alone, and they trod it unerringly while I steeled myself for what was yet to come.
Rugged brush and hard-packed earth soon gave way to slender rushes and soft clay that clumped to the soles of my boots. I slipped my feet free and shivered when cool mud squished between my toes, but the going was made less treacherous by my bare feet, and so I endured until thoughts of my impending tryst distracted me from my discomfort. By the time I had begun to carefully pick my way across the floating mat of reeds that blanketed the edge of a deep pool in a quiet bend of the river, moonlight danced over the tips of the trees, making the night-dark water glimmer like molten silver. Reverently, I sank to my knees—ignoring the chill water that seeped immediately through my trousers—and dappled my fingers on the quicksilver surface. The night was so still, I heard naught but the soft splash of droplets of water falling from my fingertips. No buzzing insect nor creaking tree marred the smothering silence. Despite the coolness of the autumn night, sweat beaded on my forehead as I knelt and waited. In the reflection of the pale water, I witnessed the lines that creased my brow and the corners of my eyes. Saw the streaks of gray in my hair and beard. When I realized I’d been holding my breath, I made myself let it out in a slow, calm stream of air.
There. A disturbance in the depths. Hair splayed out like a soot-black bloom preceded a ghostly pale face. Even before she broke the surface, I felt tension bleed from my muscles when eyes that gleamed with their own preternatural light met mine. My love’s dusky blue lips parted in a hungry smile, revealing too-sharp teeth and a tongue the color of fresh-spilled blood.
Mika.
My love.
Her words sounded from within my own head as much as they spilled from her lips like thin rivulets of spring water. “Come to join me at last, my love?”
“Not tonight, dearest heart.”
My flesh betrayed my speech, itching with a fever that demanded to be quenched in the crisp, cool waters in which Mika floated with effortless grace. Already I was drowning in my intoxication of her. Impossibly, she smelled of cinnamon and clove. Of woodsmoke and the tang of rising bread dough. She was my home. How I longed to warm her lips with mine. To be enveloped in her silky, sallow skin as we tumbled into the deepening pool; the river become our bridal bed.
Mika laid her arms on the mat of reeds and rested her chin on the back of her wrist. “At least rinse the dust from your brow. You stink of men and horses.”
“I had to travel far to purchase your favorite,” I said, even as I blinked away a compulsion to dive headlong into water from which I knew I would never emerge.
Not taking my eyes off my love for even a moment, I reached into my satchel for the bundle I had carefully wrapped in a broad occus leaf. It was only after dangling several near-translucent slices of raw veal into Mika’s mouth that I risked splashing water onto my face while she hummed her pleasure over the tender cuts of young flesh that were becoming increasingly difficult to procure. To avoid rousing suspicion by asking too often for meat that was otherwise well beyond my means, I had begun traveling farther and farther afield in search of freshly slaughtered calf. This most recent purchase had required a half-day’s walk in each direction, leaving me little time to carve away fat and sinew before preparing my love’s evening meal.
“Is there any more?” she asked with the sticky sweetness of a late-summer plum after I had fed her the last thin sliver.
“No, my blessed moon,” I said with a sad smile. “That was all I could afford.”
Mika pouted and pushed away from the edge of the reeds, the diaphanous fabric of her bridal gown plastered across milky-white breasts as she drifted away on her back. Water shimmered over the roundness of her bosom and belly, pooling in the dark cloud between her legs before cascading over her thighs. Desire flared within me like a midwinter bonfire. My skin itched anew. Sweat beaded at my temples. The iron tang of blood filled my mouth, but I clenched my jaw tighter so the salty warmth of blood from my tongue might remind me of the life I stood to lose. Scarcely in control of my own body, I forced my eyelids shut and reminded myself of the danger of letting longing overwhelm me.
Mika’s voice a whisper at my ear. “Your heart races.” She traced the sharpened tip of a pointed fingernail across the pulse at my neck. “And you tremble with longing. Why do you insist on denying yourself? I am yours as you are mine. Shed your garments and join me so we might finally consummate our marriage.”
My lips had gone dry and I could scarcely draw breath as I cupped her cold cheek with palm and fingers that felt aflame. If only I were brave enough to believe such tales as told of true love’s healing kiss. How long had it been since I’d tasted the sweetness of her mouth as we stole kisses beneath the willow at the edge of her father’s land? How many seasons had passed since we’d bound our hands and spoken secret vows? I burned with enough fire for the both of us, did I not? If there was even a chance I might bring her back to me, was I anything but a coward for not risking all to be with her once again? As was always so when my eyes met hers, I felt drawn into her, overcome with the urge to drown myself in her love even if it meant I should never again breach the surface and draw breath that did not come from her chest.
For the first time in years, I leaned in close enough for my lips to brush hers. The skin of our noses touched as I pressed my mouth more firmly against her lips. If not for the low moan of hunger and the sharp pressure of a knife-blade tooth against my lip, I might never have pulled away from that fatal kiss. It took every ounce of will I possessed to wrench myself free of her. As I lay sprawled on my side at the river’s edge, gasping at the cold night air rushing into my lungs, I witnessed a flash of anger across Mika’s features and feared this might be the moment she dropped all pretense and wrenched me violently from land while I thrashed against her clutching claws.
My river bride’s anger drifted downstream like a leaf in the current. So sweetly it made my heart ache, she smiled and twirled in the water, hair and gown swirling around her. Mika’s laughter was a rivulet of light glimmering a thousand facets as it fell from her lips.
“One day you will be mine again,” she said with unassailable certainty.
“I am ever yours,” I told her.
“If you were truly mine, you would join me once and for all.” She swam back to my mat of reeds, head cocked to one side, mouth sagging in an exaggerated frown. “Yet you insist on clinging to your miserable little life. What does this world offer you that keeps you shackled so? What pleasures do you seek that I cannot give?”
My resolve wavered and nearly fractured again. How I craved her in that moment. How I lusted after the pleasures of love I had been so long denied.
Mika smiled sweetly. “Come, Love. Let us be as one.”
My chest shuddered as I let out the sigh that had been building all evening, and I scurried back from the water’s edge. Any pleasure I took from my bride would be matched with equal measures of pain before she consumed me. This truth I held most firmly guarded in my heart of hearts. Only this knowledge kept me from going to her. Only the dull and distant echo of warning in my gut saved me from myself that night.
“Soon,” I promised as I shakily regained my feet. “Soon I will come to you for the last time, my Love.”
Though it sparked a pain like that of ripping a limb from my own body, I turned away from the water and retraced my steps back to my boots, back through the brambles, and back along the well-trodden river path. I walked numb and cold to my little cottage where I made no effort to kindle the hearth fire before collapsing onto my thin pallet. Too weary to shift myself enough to crawl beneath the warmth of my wool blanket, I tugged what fabric I could over me and wept silent tears into the crook of my arm. Moon after moon, year after year, it had never gotten any easier. How much longer could I convince myself it was better to have these small moments with my Mika than to experience one torrid moment of passion before she dragged me down to my death?
As I had so many times before, I told myself that next time I would find the courage to join my river bride. In that liminal haze between wakefulness and sleep, I tried to convince myself I was ready to give up this miserable excuse for a life and go to her for the last time. Next time I would doff my clothing and slip into the water that I might know the joy of her body even as we sank to a watery riverbed that would become my grave.
Next time I would find the courage, I told myself, as I did every night after returning from the bend in the river where the moon bathed the water silver.
Next time.
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Until next time, I’ll see you Among the Stacks!
Mark Feenstra