Devon started walking again, and I had to stretch my legs to keep up with his long strides. "This is a very old place," he said, over his shoulder. "I'm surprised that you found it… not many people show up around here."
I broke into a jog and swatted absently at a mosquito who was gnawing on my leg. "I didn't mean to trespass."
He shrugged. "Don't worry about it… I guess I was just… surprised. It's not a safe place."
"But it's so lovely," burst from me before I could help myself.
Devon paused, looking back over his shoulder at the old cottage. "It has its charm," he said, wryly. "I don't know that 'lovely' would be the proper term for it."
"Where are we going?" I demanded, after he continued on, striding at a pace that made it difficult for me to match my strides with his. The happy golden backside of his dog appeared and disappeared in the grass and trees around us, wagging his fan of a tail and his mouth agape in simple doggy pleasure.
"I'm taking you to my mother's place," he said, then smiled at my obvious surprise. "You said you weren't staying anywhere in particular. She sometimes takes in boarders for the summer. She has an empty house this summer, so I thought you might find it comfortable."
"I—I couldn't," I stammered. "I mean…" I felt my face flooding with blood and knew my cheeks were scarlet. "I… I don't have any money," I admitted, trying to hide my face by staring down at the ground and my feet. "I couldn't afford to stay anywhere."
Devon waved his hand in the air. "Don't worry about it. You can help her out in the garden and she'd think herself repaid in full. She won't mind an extra pair of hands around."
"Thanks," I mumbled. "I don't know why you're being so nice."
As he didn't appear to have heard me, I didn't press the point. I had grown up in the Midwest, it wasn't unheard of for hospitality to be extended to those in need, now here I was, horribly in need, and Devon had appeared like s pug-nosed knight in shining armor. I wasn't going to press the point. I knew all too well that I had no money, no future… nothing but the clothes on the back, which were not clothes I recognized, when it came down to it. I was fairly sure that the nearly ground-length green dress I was wearing with a white undershirt of some light, yet warm fabric, was not something I had ever had in my jeans and t-shirt closet. The fine, leather ankle-boots were certainly not mine. Who had dressed me, anyway? I must look like something out of an old fairytale in a get up like that.
I reached up a hand to touch my hair and found it plaited behind me in a long tail. My hair was long, nearly to my waist, but curly enough and thick enough that it rarely appeared to be that length.
I wondered about this apparent gap in my memory. Perhaps I had struck my head. Or maybe everything I seemed to remember was nothing but some strange post-traumatic stress dream. Only one thing was sure—nothing was making sense. Something had happened to me. I had either leapt into the ocean and been rescued, in which case I could not even slightly remember my savior… the young girl in the cottage? Or I had wandered around for heaven knows how long, completely unaware of my surroundings… hallucinating? Either way there were some serious gaps in my memory, and in my understanding. I felt completely off-balance, as if I had opened my bedroom door and found Narnia there, staring me in the face… make that Wildside, I amended to myself.
Devon was whistling to himself, a rollicking, happy, tune, that somehow seemed to echo the golden and green of the spring abounding around us. It seemed fitting that he would whistle—his homely, kind face fitting well with the happy tail-wagging golden dog, the birdsong on the cool breeze coming off of the ocean.
We came in sight of a cove, with a small boat brought aground. Devon waded out into the water and Kip, the dog, leapt aboard, bearing a large white stick in his mouth—a trophy from his ramblings. I followed, aware of the cool, moist air rising towards me as I approached the water. A tingling filled my legs and lurched into my stomach as I stepped aboard the boat. I leaned over the side, dropping my fingers into the rich beauty of the salty water surrounding us.
"Careful, or you'll have us over!" Devon cried, sharply.
I jumped. I had forgotten anything existed, but the water. I obediently took my seat, but I let my fingers lightly dance across the surface. Something in me could not bear to be this close and not be in the water. It took all of my self-control not to jump from the boat and submerse myself in a grand echo of my leap? Fall? Dream? Of last night? Ever? It no longer mattered that I could not remember what had befallen me. All I wanted was to be with the sea. I wanted to taste it, to be held by it. I wanted to feel the chill against my skin, the waves pulling at my hair.
"Meg," Devon said.
I snapped to awareness, feeling as if I had drifted into a trance. Devon was regarding me steadily, with a quiet, guarded, look on his face. "Where are you from?" He asked.
"Missouri," I said, surprised.
"How did you end up here?" He asked it as soon as I had answered his first. I felt as if he were firing the questions at me.
"I drove," I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm. I felt a blush touch my cheeks and I clasped my hands together, much as I longed to throw them, and myself, back into the water. "My… my father died. I didn't have anywhere to go. I just… drove."
"And you ended up here." It wasn't a question, so I didn't feel like I needed to answer it.
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