D) part 4

She trembled with his weight like air under the sun's heat. It was
strange, being so close to another human. He stuck her clothes to her,
she his to him, them both together.

But it was not his weight or heat that unsettled her as waiting for a
storm to break : the dogs were big, and she got sweaty when they leaned
against her as she sat in her tower. It was knowing his mind was like
her's, that, if she wasn't careful, his would slot into her thoughts
like matching cogs, that he would make her do things she'd not, of her
own will. She longed just to drop him on the beach, as a snake must its
out grown skin, drop him on the sand that he'd come from, imagined he
might trickle back into it like spilled water. He had become a chain, a
chain stopping her from pretending she was a cloud, or the wind.
Free.

Oh, he was HEAVY. Not hard heavy, like wood she brought in for the
fire. A flopping oozing heavy, the space between thunder clouds. And if
he woke, would lightning strike? She loved walking in storms, though
the dogs were afraid, cowered inside, shaking, she would go to the
beach, run through the rain's fingers, wanting them to know her deep
inside, sift the skin and bones and blood from her then when the sun
came out, rise, leave her body behind as the mist did the sand.

***

Now was hard to read as a book with pages missing. And, in those
remaining he could find no meaning, drowned in the ink of sensation :
under his feet had changed, no more slurring, it scuffed, and cool
shadows striped the red lids that held his thoughts in. The chandelier
echoes of the sea had become rustles of distance leaf layered.

she panted, small familiar sounds in the dark. He thought, I mustn't
open the window, or she will come in, attracted to the light, they
always are, they land softly, without you even noticing, then they
bite, leave me scratching when they've sucked my blood

but he was stifling in his head: awake, life had to breathe, take in
awareness.

He tried to let go, fall back into sleep, but she began to whisper,
like midges wings, whether in rage or encouragement he wasn't sure, and
he was afraid: where was she taking him? But as if in a dream he could
not move of his own will : a carriage and she his horse

he thought, if I make my thoughts heavy, she will not be able to take
me anywhere

***

His steps dragged more and more. She became afraid she'd not make it
back to the castle, but, if she went for help, what would Mum and Dad
say? They might turn the thought of him away, a stranger they'd never
seen, as if he were a hypothesis, but if the choice to let him die was
immediate, in their doorway, they would not, she was sure

he stumbled and kicked her ankle with his hard sea cracked boot. She
sobbed, let him tumble down, began to wish he were a sack of wood, then
bit her anger back, knelt beside his sprawl pulled the bottle from her
side, unscrewed the lid, the rim's cusp gleamed a half moon of wet
holding its own night; she took a long tepid gulp, then, intrepidly
reached towards the back of his head. The springing wrap of his hair
round her fingers, nestle warm at his nape, awkward raise his
head

***

gum grating, then, water tipped a chink of wet spread, tongue slicked.
But water was life, and he wanted none of it, spat it out

SLAP

A blackbird's song unspooled ribbons of joy in the cool, too beautiful
to shut out. Why could man not do this? Pile note on note, not stone on
stone, make songs not walls that keep each other out, rather make each
other fall from their brightness in love with life not to their death?
And they waited, on the brink of Heaven while the blackbird defined
boundaries with music sweet and strong and wild as God doodling in his
ears. Why did music always call him back? Through trying to keep in his
tears he heard her smile as she said "This is the drink you
need?"

How do you open your eyes? Delve the dark cave of your mind for
memory... Sight

like fingers in his mother' sewing box which he'd loved tipping out, a
tide of flashing sequins and splashing rainbows of embroidery threads
mixed in lush lapping wavelet scraps of velvet : no patterns, just
colour and he a sea god releasing his element, this hubris paid for
with the stab of shark-lurking needles and pins

Her arm was warm round his waist, but he shivered. "You have the fever?
Oh God!" He thought she was afraid, till she laughed. "Better and
better, not just a stranger but a sick one! Mum WILL be pleased" Was
she deranged? He squinted till seeing made sense. Her eyes were blue.
She was not pretty. Her mouth thinned. Come to think of it, she was too
ugly to be plain. She tensed; he had been wrong, she was afraid, but of
him well, not ill; nor did she seem mad, or not dangerously so, at
least, but becoming sadder by the second, he thought as he scanned her
face, a look he knew well from the mirror. Then she frowned, and her
eyes looked through him "What's that?" Dragged from the past's
quicksand so, willingly he listened. Dogs barked in the distance

"That's Liko and Moof!"

***

the way home had been a tune growing louder, each tree recognised, each
note heard. Now she was deaf to it, scrambled through brambles and
holly to get closer, find out what was wrong. As they got nearer the
noise became voices. More strangers! They seemed over bold, mocking.
Where were her parents' threads in this pattern? Then came Dad's, but
it sounded old, frayed, afraid. Who were these enemies to their peace?
Was this man she'd brought one of them? What had she done?

An order pretending to be a request, severe, severing the rest.
Mother's reply, cold not quite hiding appauled

A dog's snarl cut to a yelp