“These wooden huts have been uninhabited for a long time,” Nathan explained, the gray wood of the jetty groaning under the weight of the many heavy steps. “After Katrina passed through, the residents left their homes out of fear of another hurricane.”
I examined the dilapidated wooden house, which was the largest here. To protect it from flooding, it stood on stilts that reached further into the air than Pan’s head—a first-floor hut, so to speak, a kind of penthouse that seemed to wink at me ironically from its sightless windows.
Nathan climbed the wide steps and here too the rotten wood creaked as if wanting to snap under each footfall. I looked up. The house had a porch overlooking the water; the back was built on solid ground—land that was interspersed with ancient cypress trees, lush green shrubs, grass, and woodland. I spotted a few loose rotting boards, rusted tools, paddles, and even an old car tire, carelessly discarded like flotsam. There was also a tiny shed.
And I was supposed to stay here for a year? That was unthinkable. There was nothing here! Nothing! “Wait!” I called to Nathan before he could enter the shack. He stopped and looked at me questioningly as I squeezed by the others. I looked at him pleadingly, but suddenly, I couldn’t speak.
“It’ll be okay,” Nathan said as if he had read the silent question in me.
I just shook my head, but that had nothing to do with what he said. There was something about this place and it had grabbed me quite suddenly. It left me restless with a longing to search for something I didn’t even know I’d lost.
“Come on now, Will!” Nathan opened the door decisively and the rusty hinges creaked darkly, a mournful sound like an ancient sigh. Pan muttered something that sounded like a prayer for protection. I entered before him and thought Isaw a crawling, many-legged thing scurrying into the darkness. “Yuck!” I flinched, but Troy pushed me on.
“Home sweet home, happiness alone!” he mocked. “I really hope I don’t have to waste a year here.”
I ignored him and looked around, still affected by the strange feeling inside me. This hut had no partitions inside even though it seemed to consist of three rooms. From the west, the sunset fell through the windows facing the porch, painting golden squares of light across the wooden floor; a soft light like flames that turned the cobwebs between the furniture and the roof into glowing webs. I walked a few yards further, worried that a giant spider or a poisonous snake would suddenly shoot out from a dark corner.
“Don’t worry,” Nathan said, who guessed my fear. “The coral snake doesn’t normally seek refuge in higher huts. And it only reacts aggressively when it feels threatened.”
I nodded gratefully and inspected the tiny porch where only a few dusty cushions lay around a piece of driftwood, evidently the former living room. “Luxurious, my accommodations,” I commented briefly. Icarus and Troy laughed, Pan wandered around, and Sparta immediately lay down on a mattress in the back.
After looking out the window at the expansive basin, I went back. The middle of the hut was supposed to be some kind of kitchen. I ran my fingertips over the rotary switches of the gas stove. “I wonder if it still works?”
Nathan shrugged. “We’ll see as soon as we find a lighter or matches. When the gas runs out, we’ll organize a few new bottles.” He came over to me. “Adventurers, sometimes nature photographers, settle in empty Cajun houses from time to time. Now and then, they stay longer and bring more supplies than they can take back with them later. We’ll see what we can discover in the surrounding shacks tomorrow.”
“Found shitter,” Pan suddenly reported, his voice seeming to come from below. This time, I didn’t flinch at his crude choice of words; I had long since gotten used to that. “It’s downstairs. Shit falls straight into the swamp.” He noisily ascended a narrow staircase that led to the bathroom through the last room, apparently the bedroom.
“In this epic breadth, we didn’t need to know,” Icarus groaned, who was rummaging through a dusty cupboard with Troy for candles and matches.
Shivering, I rubbed my arms even though it wasn’t cold. It was summer in Louisiana, late June, which meant that the temperature rarely dropped below seventy degrees even at night, but the fear of Isaac was still in my bones. The trip and nature had distracted me from the fear, but I felt it deep down, miles deep, enormous, hidden behind the new impressions.
I went to the porch again and peered out the windows at the shimmering red pool. “Nathan?”
“Willa?” He came to me and his scent filled my nose. Sea salt still clung to him, but he also smelled of fresh sweat, a bitter, sensual smell that made me want him to kiss me again. “Am I safe from him here?” I asked quietly. “Are you the only one who knows this place?”
“Yes.” His voice sounded darker than usual. “Isaac has never been here and none of the others were either. I promise.”
I smiled with relief, and when he looked at me, there was a deep sparkle in his eyes. Timidly, he raised his hand and touched the swollen part of my face with his fingertips. It hurt, but I remained still because the touch was gentle and comforting. It triggered a warmth in me that filled me from head to toe, made me completely happy even though everything around me was in chaos; even though I no longer knew what I wanted or where I belonged; even though I was so scared.
We stood like that for several breaths, caught up in the contact, unable to stop looking at each other. Then, abruptly, Nathan dropped his hand as if he were forbidden to touch me.
He hastily backed away a yard and folded his arms. “I’m sorry about what happened, Will.”
“I know,” I whispered. Outside, the last red of dusk gave way to the blackness of the night. My heart was aching. I wanted his touch. I needed his closeness. I wanted to shake him and shout at him to hold me, kiss me, and do whatever else he wanted to do with me. A small part of me even believed that he owed me that as a kind of compensation, but of course, that was nonsense. I had no right to him especially if his story were true.
“You are a brave girl,” he said quietly now. “Stronger and braver than I believed. And you have a good heart.”
I swallowed. “Pan says that about you—having a good heart.” He was so beautiful standing there in the last black light. Shadows on his face and sadness in his eyes. Inaccessibility on every inch of his skin. A man without dreams. But that wasn’t true. He had dreams, he merely hid them well because he was afraid of them. He had told me that he wanted to be closer to me than was good for him.
I blinked and he was still looking at me, his arms crossed, the distance an invisible wall around his body.
At that moment, I wanted him completely. I felt a strange longing inside me that was driving me crazy. It burned, blazed, and shimmered like a thousand fiery sparks in my chest. I wanted to mean something to him, I wanted to be everything to him, and at the same time, I was so afraid that he would never let me get close enough to him for that. That I would never leave an imprint on him that was deep enough for him to remember. That he would forget me at some point after all this.
I had to turn away because my stomach was knotted like a rock, and after a few anxious heartbeats in which I lookedout the window and hoped for the impossible, he turned and returned to the others.
I stared at the black pool sleeping in the darkness. I had never felt so torn, so happy, and so lonely at the same time, so vulnerable and scared. So far from home. And beneath all these feelings, I still felt the deeply hidden magic of this place. The secret that it did not reveal. It was like a distant song in my mind, a rhythm, like arms that held me tightly and rocked me. Up and down. Again and again. There was a deep, honest love, a groan of old wood, and the smell of dark green water. Nevertheless, all of this was simply a feeling that turned into these images. Nothing tangible. And yet it seemed fateful to have ended up here in the bayous, in the place that I had painted on the walls of my room since I was a little girl.
The next day was so busy that I forgot about the magic of the place. I dusted and cleaned the hut as best I could with a tattered sponge and dishcloth. However, I had no experience in cleaning, so Nathan had Pan help me after I poured half of the precious cleaning product into the even more precious water. In fact, Pan always stuck to me. I suspected it was a precautionary measure because of Sparta and Nathan confirmed my suspicion when I was able to briefly speak to him alone. “Kjertan is the only one I truly trust even if I don’t suspect Ian or Noah. Stanton remains on the blacklist since I suspect that he passed on the coordinates. Nevertheless, I don’t want you to go anywhere alone with any of the three, understand?”
