Wild ​Reverence

by Rebecca Ross

My life feels brief as the dew when I compare it to your ocean, but if you will have me, this is what I offer you.

My home is your home. My arms are a haven for you to rest. My last name is yours if you desire it. I will love you to my grave, and even beyond it, when the mists welcome me, when I am hopefully very old and gray and grouchy and have spent the seasons beside you when you are here and dreaming of you when you are gone. I love you, dearly, Red. Come home to me. Return to me, when you can. I will be watching the skies and the river until then. Yours, Vincent

I realized that I did not want to look. I did not want to know when I was destined to lose him, when his thread ended and mine continued on, alone.

“Because she is yours, as you are hers,” Bade replied quietly. “And she is precious to me.”

We were doomed, she and I. One day, I would perish, and she would live on, endless as the stars. But if we were doomed, then let us fully embrace it.

My hands traced her scars, feeling them as if they were on my own skin. Tears stung my eyes. I would have taken every single lash for her.

“This will break us both in the end,” I said. “It will break me, to live on when you have breathed your last. To visit the river, years from now, and see you in every current, in every rainfall, only to remember that you are gone.”

“But until then, let us feast and dance and sleep in each other’s arms. I am yours, Red. I will always be yours. Not even Death can change that.”

“I thought you would be below, with Adria,” I said. He grunted and moved forward. “You have me worried.” “You shouldn’t be.” “Yes, but I am. And I do not know what to do with these … feelings.”

“Her secrets are not yours to glean, god of rivers,” said Bade. He stood between two elms, a shield upon his arm, his sword drawn. “Show yourself, or we shall fight by no rules.”

I had always known that I could not hold on to her. I could run in her wake for as long as I had strength, but I was destined to grow tired and slow. It did not matter how much I desired it; some moments, I could draw close enough to share the same breath as her. I could seal her mouth with my own, I could dream of growing old at her side. But there were other moments when I knew I could not follow her.

“If you have a crown of stars … why can’t I see it?” I asked. “Because the crowns can only be seen by the one who knows your soul. Adria can see mine. Vincent, I suspect, can see yours.”

I had never called him that, but it was what he was to me. No blood tethered us, but without him, I would not have been who I was. I was the daughter he would never have. The child he had secretly wanted.

The threshold would bar itself to me again, as it had with Bade. I swallowed and slid the folded parchment beneath the door instead. I watched as my letter vanished.

I have lived thirteen years without her once. I can make it through seven. I can endure ten. If she will only return to me. “Thank you,” I whispered again.

This time, my sister has woven your end upon our loom. But she did not see the golden thread that twined with yours like I did. Matilda is all that you need to escape us both. Her fate is woven with yours. A knot that not even I can unravel.

Part of me is desperate to return to that night, to rewrite it. The decisions I would have made differently, in hopes that I would find a path that did not sever me from you. But I think … I think our story was always meant to be as it was.

I do not desire to cause you any more grief or pain, but if you will wait for me, when the leaves fall and the nights grow longer, I will come to you, and we may speak again, face-to-face.

“I would wait a thousand years for you,” Vincent said. “If you asked me, I would wait for you until only my bones remained upon an altar. But if you must leave again, then let me follow you, Red.”

A stack of newspapers sat on a stool, and beside it, lined up on a desk, were three typewriters, freshly built and gleaming in the light.

She had died many years ago but had returned to live alongside her mortal love. Their time together had been simple but fulfilling. When he had eventually passed, silver-headed and weathered by the generous years given to him, she had gone with him to the mists, much to the shock of the gods.

She was many things. She was words and souls, spring and iron. She was rivers. And none of them could ever be stolen from her.

Matilda, whom the myths would seek to cut away and forget, all because she loved a mortal man. Some stories claim that humans are beholden to the gods. But that is also not true. The divine is nothing without mortal hearts. And should we love them, we should not be punished for it. No, I think. It is all the more reason why we should be remembered.