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The sea breeze flutters Abbie’s loose shirt, teases at her nerves. The sun is setting behind her and Crane’s rented oceanfront condominium, and the Atlantic stretches out in front of her, deep blue and tempting. She maybe can get in a swim before night falls completely.
Beside her on the covered patio, Crane shifts his endless legs and re-places his bare feet on the iron railing between them and the sand. She gazes at him. Hair, slightly longer, flopping over his forehead; the beginnings of his beard coming back (as she has requested, because she wants her Colonial soldier-scholar-madman, damn it); blue eyes intent on the battered copy of American Gods he’s cradling in those long-fingered hands of his.
She loves his hands. She loves being able to acknowledge the love she has for all of him.
But she’s feeling anxious, nonetheless. Decisions need to be made, yet the sea is calling.
“Think I’ll take a dip,” she says, and stands, and sheds her shirt and sarong. She’s wearing her bathing suit already.
He looks up, smiling, and surveys her. “May I assume from your phrasing that you’d prefer to be alone?”
“You’re learning,” she says, and leans over to kiss his forehead. But he catches her hand and pulls her in for a real kiss. He tastes of cinnamon and coffee, or maybe it’s her, they shared the same iced drink a while ago.
They share so much. Sometimes, though, she’s got to do for herself.
…………………………………..
Before she and Crane left Savannah that night, Abbie met with Faith Dixon Jones – not aunt, after all, but distant cousin.
Tracing the lid of the gold-and-silver box Faith had made and now given her, Abbie had said hesitantly, “You saved me that night. But how did you know?”
In a room full of art and magic, Faith had smiled. “Know what, Abbie-love?”
It was hard to find words, or to use the words she found, but – “Know I needed saving.”
Faith sipped at her wine, as if meditating, before she answered. “Your father came through town a year ago. Found me, said his older girl was a Witness, told me to keep watch. And so I did, and when I saw it was that Pandora come back…” She stopped. Looked away. Looked back, deep into Abbie’s eyes. “I knew you would need me, knew the tricks she might try. And I was ready.”
Abbie swallowed hard. Her memories were all dark, cloudy, like spilled ink obscuring what had been written and lived. She remembered vaguely facing the Hidden One and Pandora’s box, remembered hearing Crane desperately call her real name as she went elsewhere, remembered a hard pull, a mystical rope from space to space. She remembered vaguely waking in a cool blue bed in the apartment here in Savannah, and Faith telling her the false name she’d never fully believed was hers.
She remembered clearly tonight, and Crane’s deep voice saying his real name, and his lips on her hand, and then the knowing, like clearest water revealing every last secret. Not that Abbie believed in true love’s kiss exactly, but it had been pretty damn powerful magic, whatever it was. Still –
“Why didn’t you contact me before, though? When I was alone?”
“Honey, you were never alone. You had Mr Long Tall Drink of Water with you, didn’t you?” Faith smiled again. “Nothing can beat the two true Witnesses when y’all get going.”
And somehow that was the last turn of the key, and a lifetime of tears came from the depths of her. “I lost this one battle. Being a Witness wasn’t enough.”
At that, Faith pushed back her chair and came around the table to take Abbie in her arms, to rock her like she’d needed decades ago when her mother checked out and there were bad, bad things in the woods. They stood like that for a moment, quiet, connected.
“You won. You won so damn much. You’re more than enough, honey,” Faith whispered. “You and your man, you’ve got power. But it’ll be up to you to decide what to do with it.”
……………………………………
The sand is soft-hard on her bare feet as she heads toward the water’s edge. Tide’s coming in, and she’ll need to be careful. There were rip currents along the beach earlier.
But the sea is a good place for thinking. She loves the pull and push of the waves, the meditation of it. She loves the way it’s different from woods and mountains, from catacombs and archives.
She looks over her shoulder. Crane’s gotten to his feet and is leaning against a support post, watching her walk. She puts a little sashay into it, and hears his low, slightly breathless laugh.
The boy is so damn easy, she thinks, and smiles to herself. Then – “Hey, Crane, sing to me.”
“At your service,” he says, and she looks back again to see his bow – which is weirdly charming with his hipster khakis and his loose striped T-shirt. “Any particular requests?”
“What you feel,” she says, as the first rush of water reaches her toes. It’s warm down here in south Florida, even in late September.
For a moment there is only ocean and her breath, but then she hears that beloved voice lilt, “’Full fathom five thy father lies, Of his bones are coral made-‘”
Her partner. What a goofball. She should never have told him about her mermaid thing.
And she’s laughing as she judges the best wave and then dives in.
……………………………………..
That first night, after packing Crane’s secondhand SUV with a few boxes and a suitcase from the apartment Faith had put together for Abbie and his few belongings, they drove west. They debated stopping in Atlanta, but decided to drive a little further south to Macon.
Even though they picked an upscale hotel chain, the night clerk gave “Hope” and “James” a nasty side-eye when they checked in. Crane out-stared him, however, using that entitled arrogance that other times drove Abbie crazy, and they got a nice (if beige) non-smoking room on the top floor.
One with a king-size bed.
Once in, Abbie flipped on the bedside light. There were two chocolates on the pillows nearest her. “Ooh, mint inside,” she said, picking them up – and then turning to look at Crane, who still hovered by the door.
His hands, those tell-tale fingers of his, were restless at his sides. His eyes were as deep-sea blue as she’d ever seen them. His mouth was set firm. Then, “Abbie, if you would prefer… it’s been a shock to you, remembering, and I shouldn’t wish to presume…”
“Do you always stall this way with a woman, Crane?” she asked, genuinely curious.
His answer was just as genuine. “Not at all. But I was raised a gentleman. It must be your choice, now and always.” He smiled, but he was serious. “And to be honest, my dear Lieutenant, once we begin I fear I shan’t be able to stop.”
“I appreciate that,” she said, just as serious. “Now get your ass over here, ‘cause you’ve been chosen about a million damn times already.”
He was there before she’d even finished, picking her up and wrapping her legs around him, kissing her like he’d been starving for her for two hundred and some-odd years. Then, still entwined, they fell back on the bed, he taking their combined weight, and she took over.
It was her hands on him, his hands on her, it was open-mouthed kisses and heat and the unbelievable ease and rightness when he slid inside. It was his murmured “Abigail” when he came, it was the marks she left on his back when she did.
Afterward, he rolled onto that scratched back, bringing her with him, and they fell asleep like that, still together.
They never did find those chocolates.
………………………………
It’s getting darker now. Sunset rose tips the waves every time she emerges from below. Night’s on its way.
She and Crane are supposed to fight the worst of the night-monsters. She knows that. But she has to figure out if those old rules still apply to her and him. She has to figure out what they do next.
She dives again, lets the sea roll over her, listens to the waves and to her heart.
……………………………….
After Macon, she and Crane kept driving south.
Northern Florida was bad – when they stopped for gas in Lake City, some good old boys in a beat-up truck with a Confederate flag looked like they might cause trouble, and Abbie pulled Crane away just in time – but once they hit the east coast, it seemed okay. Okay-ish.
Using his new internet-research skills, Crane found them a short-term beachside place here near Boca Raton. They hadn’t talked about what came next; it was more of a silent understanding that they needed time to acclimate to the new phase of their relationship.
It turned out to be kind of a sideways honeymoon, really. They walked together on the beach morning and night. She swam, he kayaked. One night he got reservations at a fancy French restaurant and pulled out his best Captain Crane manners for her all night – which gave her more than a few heart-flutters, she had to admit, and for which she jumped him in the shower when they got back—but most of the time he cooked for them. On lazy afternoons, after she’d ridden him to heaven and back, he would read to her -- Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman, which he’d picked up with American Gods at a used bookstore nearby. When they got to the mermaid, she crowed with joy, and at that point had to confess she’d always wanted to be one when she was little.
Crane half-sang, half-murmured in her ear the last lines of some song from The Tempest he said was about a mermaid, and the resonance in his voice, the tickle of his breath against her ear, his palm slipping along and up the inside of her thigh, all of it sent her boneless into the sheets, at which point he took her like he was a goddamn pirate in one of the fuchsia-bound books her second foster mother had hidden all over the house. Afterward she made a silent vow they’d play Mermaid and Pirate a lot. A lot.
But even as they took this time for themselves, she knew it was fleeting. They had to figure out where they were going and why. It was just who they were -- Witnesses as well as lovers.
When they Skyped with Jenny, a stolen fifteen minutes from wherever Jen was, she finished their tearful conversation with “When you guys come back, just let me know. I’m in.”
Afterward, Abbie sat hand in hand with Crane. “You think we should go back?” she said after a silence filled with ocean-song.
He kissed her hand, he didn’t let go. “I follow you, Lieutenant. I believe in duty, but I also believe in us.”
“You say it’s my choice in this situation, Crane, I swear I’m gonna smack you.”
“That could be interesting indeed,” he said, “we’ve not tried that sort of bedroom game yet,” and evaded the retribution of her free hand. Then, as their laughter died, he said earnestly, “I will leave behind this bloody madness if you feel it right. Without one single qualm, Abbie. But we are both people who require purpose beyond our love. What will we do instead?”
“Sucks so much when you’re logical, Crane,” she sighed, and rested her head on his shoulder, and sighed again.
……………………………………
The pull of the waves is so strong. She knows there’s a hurricane out in the Caribbean, churning up the surf from a thousand miles away.
As she works with and against the current, she thinks of the pull of Pandora’s box, and the good counterbalance of Faith’s magic. There’s so much about her and Crane’s gifts they don’t know yet, and they haven’t been systematic in their explorations. There’s so much more for them to do.
And as the light dissolves into night, as a bigger wave threatens, she knows her answer. Now all she has to do is get to shore.
It’s not the struggle she expects. She’s stronger than she thought she was. She’s at home in the tide –
And then, when she’s almost close enough to put her feet down, her guy’s hand catches her arm and pulls her in safe the rest of the way.
Laughing, she surfaces. Crane is wet to his thighs, still wearing his khakis and T-shirt, the fabric molding to that lean body. “What are you doing?” she says, as the water swirls around them.
“You went out quite a long way, Abbie, and I…I was worried.” He pushes back his hair with one wet hand. She can see him in the overlapping lights from down the beach. She sees him, her beloved, her partner. And if she hadn’t made up her mind before, this would do it.
“Okay. You braced?” she says.
She sees him anchor himself for her, even as waves threaten. “Indeed,” he says. “I’m ready for you.”
When she jumps, he catches her. Wraps her legs around him. Kisses her with all the stored-up love of a couple hundred years, there in the night-sea.
And when he lifts his head, she smiles at him. “Guess we’re going back, Crane. To Witnessing. Guess we got work to do.”
“I shall be ever happy to serve at your side,” he says, and settles her more securely, and turns toward land.
She rests her head on his shoulder. “Sing me our song, baby. Just the last lines of it.”
He kisses her temple, then sings to her, just enough to be heard over the waves, “’Nothing of him that does fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange—‘”
“That’s us,” she says, and holds him tight as they leave the sea together to return to their destiny.
But they’ll come back, she thinks. The pull will get them both in the end.
Together.