And I kiss him.
Gowan. My Gowan.
“You were out there, living. The whole time. Did you marry a girl? Did you have a family? Did the war happen?”
His smile is sad, and I know the answers before he tells me.
“No family. There was no one after you. There was just an endless life. Empty. Long. Survival. And, yes. I’m sad to say that the war did come, as people said it would. It was a terrible time. Many died. It was senseless. I signed up to fight and I survived five years as a soldier. I was almost glad, at times, that you weren’t there to suffer through it. I had no idea, of course, that you were trapped, suffering just as much as I was.”
“We were together in that, then, I suppose.”
He nods, and we stare out at the mountains. Nori and Cath are specks in the distance, shining under the sun.
“Such a waste,” I whisper. Our lives, both gone before we could really be happy. “I need you to show me something.”
He closes his eyes; he knows what I want. “I can’t.”
“I know it will be difficult. All of this has been… more than difficult. But… I have to see what happened when you found us.”
Gowan’s face is a waterfall in slow motion.
“But… why?”
“I need to face it. The… after.”
“It was… a dark experience, Sill. The most difficult thing I have ever…” His calm is gone. “Please. Let yourself be free.”
I smile. “I already am. But you’re not. Show me this last piece. Let me free you from it.”
The tension in his spirit is made suddenly and brilliantly visible. It hangs like a shadow—a heavy shadow, clinging to his shoulders and hanging down his back. A cloak of pain.
“Please… don’t make me. Don’t make me do this.”
I gather him to me. “Please.” It is a whisper. A word I said too often in my life. And in my purgatory. It is a plea. “Show me. I need this. And you do, too.”
He doesn’t answer, but the world around us shifts and changes.
A Story
Gowan Returns
The sun shines through windows that are no longer grown-over with seventy-four years of vines. The door bursts open. Silla watches as Gowan, so young, so mortal, bursts in, stumbling with the momentum.
“Sill?”
Breathless,
sigh…
the silence hits him.
“… Silla…”
He runs,
rushes,
up the stairs,
stumbling,
almost as though
“… please…”
he knows
“… no…”
what he is going
“—Silla—”
to find.
The room is dark, but he can smell… the rot. The death. The emptiness is horrifying.
He s
t
a
g
g
e
r
s
falls
to his knees.
“Silla—”
Chokes on her name.
Retches.
Vomits.
Screams.
“SILLA!”
He rushes
SillaSillaSillaSillaSilla—
to the bed
Nonononononononono—
falls upon her.
Gathers her into his arms, even though something is
dripping
from her hair.
He shakes her. Slaps her. Cries her name. Begs her to undo her demise.
Nori, so small, lies in the bed, still and gray. A husk, sunken eyes, not Nori anymore.
He hugs Silla for a long time, even though there are maggots and she is stiff and the smell…
He strokes her hair, his lips close to her ear. “Please. Silla.” He tenses, every sinew straining against the roaring pain of her loss. “I’m sorry—I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
And he bares his teeth because there is nothing else he can do; the pain is ripping inside.
“I promise you,” he says, whispering low, echoing words from long ago, “I will love you forever.” His head falls onto her corpse. “Every night. I’ll be saving you in my dreams every night.”
And he sobs and he screams and the house listens and groans.
“Thank you.”
Gowan is crying now, his hands pressed over his eyes. I gently remove them.
“You helped me to free myself. Helped me to forgive myself and dispel my guilt. Now you need to know that I forgive you.”
“For letting you die?” He chokes and balls up his hands, shaking. The dark thing hanging on to him darkens. “For leaving you all alone?”
“For doing everything you could. Twice.”
I kiss him, pushing my deepest hope and love and light into the kiss. “Now you have to forgive yourself.”
He shakes his head, his eyes full of the wordless remorse that’s been growing and eating at him for more than seven decades. “I… I can’t, Silla. I was too late—I should have—”
“Please.” I lean close to his ear. “Forgive yourself. I forgive you.”
He sighs.
Gathers me into his arms.
All this time…
“Silla… I have you. After so long. I have you again.”
“We have each other. Gowan… I don’t feel it.” I breathe into his neck.
“What?”
“Sadness. Guilt. Anger.”
“What do you feel?”
I laugh. “I feel alive!”
epilogue