Wild ​Reverence

by Rebecca Ross

“He chose me first,” I replied. “He dreamt of me before I knew of him. His soul found mine before I even knew how to look for his.”

She was not mine by spoken vow but something deeper. Something that felt older, stronger, darker, like a language that had been sung centuries ago but had now been forgotten. Something that simmered in the blood, calling to me, calling to her.

There was a side of me that was afraid to listen to his words. I feared they would split me open, just like the wounds on my back. I feared that once I started bleeding, I would never be able to stop it.

I do not know when this happened, when the current rose and when I let it take me, willingly, but there came a moment when I looked at you and could not breathe. There was a moment when I watched you depart, and I wanted to fall to my knees.

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.

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.

I wanted him to split me open, if only to see what would spill from my blood. The secrets, the pain, the shadows, the words. The pieces of me that I was afraid to bare to any save for him. I wanted to set those fragments in his hands. The myth of who I had been, of who I could still become, my life woven with his. A goddess who loved a mortal.

“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.”

I think you know that the soul can be found in words, and words within the soul. The two reflect each other in the sky, do they not?”