Page 112 of Aïdes the Unseen
She pointed and I followed her gaze. There rising at the edge of the field, stood a lone olive tree. Ancient, gnarled, half-split down the trunk. Its limbs were twisted but vibrant, and its roots clawed into the earth like it had grown from the body of the land itself.
“The wind,” she added, tears thickening in her voice. “It sings. I used to hum that tune without realizing. I thought it was something I made up as a kid. But it washere. Alwayshere.”
I didn’t speak. What could I say?
Grief was a potent elixir. For all that I longed for her to never feel such pain, it was as much hers as the memories themselves. The kind of pain that came from being close to something you had loved and forgotten.
Her memory was unlocking itself like petals unfurling under the heat. Not all at once. Not violently. Almost as though she wereRegrowthitself, responding with aching slowness. Torn from herself, she had the right to mourn that absence.
“I don’t know if you see it,” she said, glancing at me with shimmering eyes. “Maybe it’s just me. Maybe this memory’s only mine.”
I looked past her again.
The grain.
The olive tree.
The slope just beyond it, where the field dropped gently into basin.
It looked like earth. Just grass. Just dirt.
Then I sawthem.
Small white stones arranged in an impossible spiral. Carved with old sigils, some cracks, some half-buried. It was a shrine or maybe just an ancient altar. It wasn’t mine or even for me. It was for something so much older than death.
The scent, it wasn’t just wheat and dust. Shock rippled through me. It wasspringonly spring buried beneath autumn. The soft sweetness of a pomegranate, faint and clinging, like someone had ripped the rind with their teeth and let the juice stain the wind.
“I see it,” I said.
Her relief escaped on a breath.
The dog was up by the olive tree. He had circled it once then sat beneath it. Head cocked, he watched us. While he might stillbe on guard, he wasn’tguarding. No, he was waiting for us and maybe for permission.
“Everything is so quiet here,” Irina said. “Not empty though.” She closed her eyes, taking a deeper breath as though she wanted to savor the fragrance of the air. “The land is waiting.”
She turned to me, lifting those spectacular eyes to meet my gaze. When she studied me now, it was different. It wasn't just affection or recognition. It was far deeper. A sorrow threaded with longing. A knowing.
“I was happy here once,” she said. “Not in some grand way. Not a queen or goddess or anyone that mattered.”
She would always matter to me.
“Just me. But I was happyand someone I think Iloved.”
I tensed, but she shook her head before I could register a protest.
“It wasn’t you,” she murmured in a gentle voice. “I know that. I don’t even mean love like that. It wasbeforeall of it. Before Demeter. Before Olympus. Before my memory started fracturing.”
Her fingers tightened on mine again.
“I think it must have been beforenames.”
A hush swept over the field, the wind pausing to listen. Somewhere beneath our feet, the land pulsed once. Faint. Slow. It took me a moment to recognize it for what it was. A heartbeat we’d both missed until now.
Brushing the knuckles of my free hand down her cheek, I said the only words I could. “Then this is where we begin.”
The corners of that lush mouth I had already learned to adore, curved upwards before she moved toward the spiral. Hand in hand, she followed a path maybe only she could see, though the grain parted for her on a whisper of welcome.
My feet sank into the earth; the grass teased my flesh, but it didn’t irritate. Her footsteps were so light, but I had to wonderif the land kissed at her with each step. The breeze brushed at her robe again, the soft silk wrapped over our joined hands as it bared her legs.
