And what was that day like for Gabriel—the last day he lived? I hunted for him but could not find him until evening fell. Our child was swelling inside of me. One moment my blood rioted with anger, the next I collapsed in tears. I hated him that day; I needed him. I paced back and forth between the house and his shed, barefoot and mad, not minding for alligators, pushing his door open to find only his empty bed. This might have struck a wiser woman as foreshadowing, but I had lost my wisdom. I was a mere mammal, searching the earth for my mate.
He had left first thing in the morning, or even in the middle of the night, to where I’ll never know. Perhaps Simon had finally assigned him a task that called him off the property. More likely he spent the day pacing, just as I was, up and down the wilds of the island, escaping the burden of encountering another human face.
I have tried for so long to remember the sound of his voice that evening when I finally found him, there on the unlighted beach. He nodded to the boat, then pulled his blue shirt off and left it on the shore, offering a cursory explanation that the shirt was done for, had a hole. I thought once again that he had some mad trick up his sleeve, that he might blow us up with fireworks or row me out until forever, to Bermuda and then the Canary Islands, from there to the coast of Africa, where the desert meets ocean.
“I want to talk to you, Elle,” he said. His voice cracked. “Out there. I want to show you something.”
“Can’t we talk on the beach, Gabriel?” I insisted. “I’ve been searching for you all day.”
“It feels better to be out on the water,” he said. “Like we could go somewhere.” I have said those words to myself every day since, walking through the breathing woods, during silent dinners with Simon, every single time I look at the Atlantic. Like we could go somewhere. “Just for a little bit. Just to be you and me. Isabelle and George.”
“What do you want to show me, Gabriel?”
“It’s a surprise, Elle,” Gabriel whispered. “One you have to keep a secret.”
“Fine,” I said. And he helped me into the boat, like a princess to her carriage, and rowed me out into the darkness. What remains after we left shore is the residue of a dream. The ocean was hushed and black. I lay in his arms, against his bare chest, and felt that warmth, that irreplaceable hunger in my blood to be near him, as close as possible, intertwined with him, to dissolve into him—wasn’t that animal feeling the very zenith of human emotion? I have never since felt so alive.
We were quickly far from shore. The tide had pushed us out without our noticing it. The wind was cold off the ocean, raising the hairs on my arms. Gabriel was rubbing my legs, and then his hands went there, to my belly, which had risen, noticeably, and he almost knew, and he began to hum to her. I looked up. Suddenly the night had become brilliant with stars. In our little rowboat in the middle of the black Atlantic, billions of years of light had arrived just for us. Gabriel was whispering in my ear, speaking dimly of things I try to remember now—those words, all of these years—but cannot. It has been like having a conversation with a figure in a dream. And then . . .
“Do you see that blue light all through the trees on the coast of Lyra?” Gabriel asked. “It’s everywhere, actually.”
I looked up to where he had pointed, my head nestled in the crook of his neck, his smell all burned wood, Gabriel himself mixing with the salt and the wind off the sea. “You mean the stars?” I asked. “I just see little stars.”
Gabriel lifted himself up and I slipped off his chest. “Seriously. Look back over at Lyra. That’s where you can see it best. See how all the oaks are twinkling blue?”
I looked to shore. “What have you had to drink tonight?” I said, laughing, but his breath was clean, sweet. Lyra’s silhouette was dark and ever more distant.
“Remember when we first met, Elle?” he asked, then went on. “On the A train. You were sitting beside me, nose turned up, and my first impression of you was that you were a prude. Then, out of nowhere, you collapsed in my lap. I thought you’d fainted but you—you’d just fallen asleep there like you knew me all your life. Like a total madwoman.”
“How could I ever forget when all you do is tease me about it?” I replied.
“I wouldn’t dare wake you. I just watched you, mesmerized, as dreams formed beneath your eyelids. Your face kept moving through all these expressions: sadness, anger, bliss, sadness. Some seconds you looked like you might start crying, and others like you were laughing. But I fell for you when I saw the way you looked sad. Even asleep, it was already like I’d known you all my life. That’s how familiar you were to me. I missed my stop without noticing. Then the train rose up and we were in Brooklyn. There was this light on your face. . . . I couldn’t describe it then but now I see it everywhere I look. You see, light is the only thing that doesn’t age. It’s the only thing that doesn’t feel time.” Gabriel kissed me. Our lips were both chapped from the wind. It was the driest kiss we ever shared, and our last.
“Now you’ve made our meeting sound like one of your fairy stories,” I said.
“Isn’t that what you love about me?” Gabriel replied. “The world out there is a sort of prison, but in my stories fairies fly. And we are free.”
“Your stories are ridiculous,” I said.
“Let me tell you another, then. A truly fantastic one,” Gabriel said. “You know those gems Simon’s looking for—well, they’re far more brilliant than he’s let on. They sit down there under the water, reflecting a map of all of the stars above. And when you have one in your hands, your soul becomes visible. What you’re really made of. You see, if I had one on a ring right now, and I put it on your finger, I could—”
“And what are our souls made of, Professor Bell?” I asked, interrupting his mad soliloquy.
“Blue luminescence,” he replied very seriously.
“Blue luminescence,” I repeated, as if I knew they were words I must always remember. “Okay, I know how it begins. But how does it end, your story?”
“Like it always does,” Gabriel replied. “The prince and the princess—or, in this case, you and I—we live happily ever after. You see, Elle Bell, out here, well, nobody owns the ocean. And besides, I’ve beaten Simon to it. It just so happens I’ve already found Simon’s treasure. By the end of the night you’ll be dressed in gems—like I promised you long ago. That’s why I brought you here. The jewels are all around us. Right below us. All we gotta do is dive in and get them. Go ahead and look down—can’t you see ’em?”