Chapter Eight

ELLE

In my favorite dream, I flew.

I opened my eyes and realized Ayrie was wrapped around me, pulling me tightly against him. He had tangled his fingers into mine. It was dim in the little loft, but I could see a faint ray of sunlight hitting the floor downstairs. I thought it was early in the morning.

A hint of mustiness still permeated the shack even though we had aired it out yesterday. I sighed, not caring about the odor. Having Ayrie wrapped around me felt so good that I thought I might float away.

It almost felt too good. He had been keeping us warm because there was a storm last night. Ayrie didn’t need any comfort from me. If I didn’t keep my head on straight, I was going to get badly hurt. He had told me in no uncertain terms yesterday why he couldn’t love me. How was I supposed to respond to that?

Ayrie sighed and gave me a squeeze. I didn’t know he was awake until he kissed my cheek. “Are you feeling better, Elle?”

“Much better. I guess I overdid it.” I felt chagrined. I had been an idiot. “How did I get back here?”

“I carried you.” There was something strange about his voice. I turned to face him and realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

“By yourself and in the dark? That must have been hard. I had a nice dream, though.”

“What was it about?” He opened his eyes, looking mildly curious.

“I love flying dreams, but I wasn’t flying in this one. You were. You looked like an angel.” I started laughing.

“I definitely have the body of one.”

“Maybe a fallen one.” It seemed like he might get up any moment, so I took a chance and gave him a quick kiss.

“Thanks for bringing me here.”

“We couldn’t have stayed up there. A storm started blowing after you passed out. We would have spent a miserable night on the hilltop.”

“I believe you.” I shuddered at the thought of being caught in the cold wind and rain.

“I should go back and start a smoke signal. Why don’t you stay here and rest?” He reached out and touched my hand.

“Sure. That’s a good idea.” I tried not to sound disappointed. I must not have convinced Ayrie because he gave me an odd look.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I’d rather take you with me, but we shouldn’t risk you passing out again, Elle.” A shadow passed over his face. I realized that he had been deeply concerned about me.

I didn’t like that I had fainted, either. And I knew that I should stay here, but I didn’t want to be alone. “Don’t worry about me,” I said casually. “I’ll hang out on the beach and pretend I’m on vacation.”

“You would eat better if we were on a pleasure trip. I’ll gather some more breadfruit and berries on my way down. Are you hungry now?”

I shook my head. “Instead of worrying about me, figure out how to contact a ship so we can get off this island.”

Did he look like he would be disappointed to leave? Or was my mind playing tricks on me? I would be glad to go, except for one little fact. For the first time since we had married each other, my husband and I liked one another. I could see why he wouldn’t want our attitudes toward each other to change.

I wondered what would happen when we returned to the spaceship. Would our time on the island be like a dream? Would we go back to our horrible marriage?

I hoped not.

He kissed me again, gazing into my eyes with concern. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

I nodded. Unintentionally, my arms went around Ayrie’s neck. He put his hand on my lower back and moved me closer to him. The kiss started to heat up. I felt like he was trying to tell me something with his body that he couldn’t verbalize — and it took my breath away.

Ayrie pulled back unexpectedly. “Sorry about that.”

“You don’t have to apologize for anything.”

“I should go, Elle.” He squeezed me one last time before going downstairs.

I watched him until his back disappeared through the door, then sighed and flopped down onto the bed. I allowed myself a few minutes to mope about our pathetic situation.

But that was all. I told myself that I couldn’t wallow in misery for too long. I wouldn’t sit around waiting for Ayrie to come back. In the meantime, I was going to find something to do.

I hung the quilt outside to air out. I cleaned the shack, sweeping out the downstairs areas we hadn’t touched yesterday. I cleared out the soft grasses we used for sleeping and collected fresh plant material, bringing its sweet scent with me and spreading it over the loft.

After that, I brought the quilt back up and laid it out, then sat down on the bed to rest. I hadn’t recovered from yesterday yet, and I was asleep before I knew it.

When I woke up, the slanting bar of sunlight on the floor had moved quite a bit, and I thought a few hours had passed. There was still no sign of Ayrie. While I worked, I had become hot and sweaty. I realized that I smelled terrible.

I needed to take a shower or a bath. The closest I would get to either one was a swim in the ocean.

Ayrie hadn’t said the water was dangerous. I suppose neither of us had wanted to go back in after our narrow escape. But I wanted to get clean now. Today was the hottest since we had crashed on Vandwa. It would be lovely to cool off in the sea.

When I made my decision, I headed down to the beach. Earth’s waters were too polluted to play in them. We had to save all our fresh water for drinking, and countries still fought wars over water rights. There was none of that on Vandwa; only clear, blue water everywhere I looked.

As long as I didn’t go out too deep, I should be safe even though there were creatures in the ocean. I watched carefully for danger before I stripped off my clothes and went into the sea, bringing my filthy pants and shirt with me.

The water wasn’t cold. The weather was so warm that it felt like bathwater. And it was clear, too. I couldn’t see a trace of aquatic life, which surprised me. The experience was refreshing and exhilarating.

It felt naughty to be swimming out in the open, completely nude. I washed my clothes and left them in the shallow water before starting to float on my back. I was grateful for the first chance to relax in a long time.

I had never really been alone on Earth. My life with Ayrie on the starship hadn’t been much different, but there was an underlying tension between us that kept me on edge. On the island, there were no other people and nothing to make me stressed. The only thing around was me, naked and honest. And for the first time, I liked the woman I saw.

I stayed in the water for a long time before coming out and spreading my clothes to dry. I decided to take a walk along the shore. I went just far enough to explore before turning around and coming back to my clothes. I was clean and dry, and I suddenly felt tired. I lay down on the warm sand with the sun beaming down on me, feeling like a bare-skinned water baby finally coming to land. I fell asleep again, completely at peace.

AYRIE

I made the fire as quickly as I could. Once the flame was stable, I fed the green leaves into it, creating a huge plume of smoke that could be seen from miles away. I stayed and added as many smoke-generating leaves as the fire could take. The flames died down after another hour.

Before I left, I stamped out the fire and covered it with dirt. I didn’t want to have to flee to the ocean because we accidentally burned down the island.

For the entire time I was tending the fire, all I could think about was Elle. Was she all right? Had she passed out again? What if she lost consciousness or stopped breathing when I wasn’t there and couldn’t help her?

I paced around nervously. When my task was complete and I could finally go, I decided that the agony of taking out my wings would be worth it if it sped up my return. I could land in the jungle and retract my wings so she wouldn’t know about them. I planned to go into the shack the same way I left. Elle would remain unaware of my secret.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Everything went according to plan until I returned and couldn’t find her anywhere. I frowned. Where was she? At the bathroom trench?

I peeked in that direction to see if I could spot a head of short brown hair, but I didn’t see anything. Eventually, I went over to make sure she hadn’t fainted while she was relieving herself. There wasn’t a single sign of her.

I was starting to get worried. I had expected to find Elle sleeping or resting when I came back. Instead, she had wandered off somewhere. I looked around and noticed that she had cleaned up a little and changed the bed.

Maybe she had wanted to take a swim. I needed a bath, too. I took off running to check the beach. On the sand, I found the first sign of Elle. She had spread her clothes out on some rocks to dry. Elle herself was nowhere to be seen.

Had she followed me up the trail? I had only come down the part which came out near our cabin, so if she had been moving at the same time, I could have easily missed her. I hiked back to the base of the hill and looked up the trail as far as I could see. I didn’t think she would have gone hiking. If I couldn’t find her, I would have to open my wings and search for her from the air, but I wanted to put that off as long as possible. I didn’t want her to know.

I ran back to camp, feeling more and more frantic as the minutes went by and I couldn’t find her. I shouldn’t have left her alone. She had said she was a lifeguard and could take care of herself in the water, but maybe she had an accident.

I looked in the water along the beach, just in case. There wasn’t a trace of her, like in the jungle near our campsite. The afternoon passed without me seeing Elle’s sweet face at camp.

I had lost her. I walked back into camp after another search, feeling dejected. She had neatly cleaned the loft, but it was empty now. I decided to rest inside while I tried to absorb the reality of what had happened.

It didn’t matter if she was dead or had disappeared. Either way, she was gone. I couldn’t feel any emotion, and it reminded me of losing my mother.

Were the two situations really that similar? Was I so close to Elle that I felt this strongly about her? I thought I didn’t love her.

I was going to try again. Maybe Elle was hurt somewhere in a place I had overlooked. I couldn’t give up so easily. I would look down from the air before combing the entire island systematically. If she was on the island, I was going to find her. I hadn’t been a great husband so far. I was determined to do better from now on.

Wincing at the thought of deploying my wings twice in a short timespan, I steeled myself against the pain and released them. I cried out as torment filled my head, spreading out from my back into every cell of my body. Every time I took out my wings, my body fought against me. When the anguish finally ceased, I took to the skies.

I flew back and forth across the island searching for any sign of Elle. I went down the beach that I had already walked down twice today. It took a third time for me to see her body.

She lay in a little hollow pointing toward the jungle. I had walked right past the spot before, but a dune had hidden her from my line of sight.

I dove down and landed, stifling my cries of agony as I retraced my wings for the second time in a day. As soon as the shaking stopped and I could walk, I made my way over to her.

She was nude and looked as pale as a corpse. I dropped to my knees, and a wretched groan escaped my mouth.

Not Elle too. I hadn’t known that I needed her. But now that she might be gone, I couldn’t imagine what I was going to do without her.