Page 1 of His

One

Astor

I swat at the mosquito buzzing around my face as I quietly close the car door. The cicadas scream at my arrival, their pitched whines like needles piercing my ear drums. The air is stifling, heavy with humidity brought on by a late afternoon thunderstorm. Already, I begin to sweat.

It’s suffocating. Like being in a sauna.

I squint into the setting sun, hanging low in the sky, hovering just above the mountain peaks.

Per usual, I check the driveway for signs of recent tire tracks or footprints. When I find none, I scan the dense forest that surrounds the cabin, drifting from shadow to shadow. Miles and miles of nothing but rugged, dangerous wilderness.

A perfect place to hide.

Which was the point, I guess.

With the envelope clutched in my hand, I begin walking up the long dirt driveway, my boots crunching against the loose rocks. Massive cypress trees line the path, their long, crooked branches silhouetted by the setting sun. Spanish moss drips from the limbs, swinging in a breeze I can’t feel.

I kneel down and study the trail of little paw prints set in dried mud. I’ve seen them several times now, and after taking pictures and studying the wildlife in southern Louisiana, I know they belong to a bobcat who must live nearby. It makes me uneasy. He’s getting more confident. Soon, he’ll be comfortable enough to climb onto the porch.

I grit my teeth and stand up, the t-shirt and jeans I’m wearing already damp with sweat. I hate this place. I don’t know why anyone—in their right mind—would live here.

This particular region of western Louisiana is part of a dense, untamed forest known as the Piney Woods, and is marred with countless swamps and bayous. It’s home to multiple dangerous species like panthers, wolves, and alligators, just to mention a few. It’s a brutal untamed wilderness. Stubborn and unrelenting.

Just like the woman I’m visiting. . . . Though is it called visiting when the other person doesn’t answer the door?

My pulse starts to pick up as the driveway curves and the tiny two-bedroom log cabin comes into view. Each time I visit, Sabine has done something new to the home. Last week she replaced the rotted planks on the wraparound porch. This week, she’s added a swing bench next to the front windows. Potted begonias are everywhere; overflowing in a mismatch of pots. The bright red compliments the deep green of the shutters she painted three weeks ago.

My heart starts to pound, as it always does, as I walk up the four crooked porch steps that I’ve ascended what feels like a hundred times.

The cabin appears to be dark. No movement behind the glass.

I glance at the rusted Jeep parked to the side.

She’s here.

She’s always here.

My palm slides over the brass door knob, and like always, my brain tells me to just break in. To breach. To grab my beautiful butterfly, pull her into my arms and never let go again. But my heart reminds me, however, of Sabine’s stubborn independence, and of the pain I’d put her through.

She needs time. Obviously, she needs time as she hasn’t returned any of my phone calls, texts, emails, or opened the door.

I love you, anyway.

Those words—her words.

I love you anyway.

Those were her last words to me before being gunned down, after offering herself to Carlos as a sacrifice.

Let Astor and his wife go, and take me.

My wife.

Frozen, with my hand on the doorknob, Sabine’s face flashes behind my mind’s eye. The shock and pain in her eyes when she learned that I had made a deal with Carols before falling in love with her. The deal that said I was willing to trade her body for Valerie’s.

I love you, anyway, she’d said, despite it all, in her final moments. In Sabine’s worst moment, she still loved me.

The four words have haunted every minute of every day since then.

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